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CONDON: 

R R A D £U R Y & F, tf A N S , B U / E R 1 ! I ' I I 



THE PERSONAL HISTORY 



DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



BY CHARLES DICKENS. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. K. BROWNE. 



LONDON : 
BEADBUEY & EVANS, 11, BOUYEEIE STEEET. 

1850. 






^ 






X 



\ 









LONDON 

BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEITBIARS. 




AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 



THE HON. MR. AND MRS. RICHARD WATSON, 



ROCKINGHAM, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. 



PREFACE. 



I do not find it easy to get sufficiently far away from this 
Book, in the first sensations of having finished it, to refer to it 
with the composure which this formal heading would seem to 
require. My interest in it, is so recent and strong ; and my 
mind is so divided between pleasure and regret — pleasure in 
the achievement of a long design, regret in the separation 
from many companions — that I am in danger of wearying the 
reader whom I love, with personal confidences, and private 
emotions. 

Besides which, all that I could say of the Story, to any 
purpose, I have endeavoured to say in it. 

It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know, how 
sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years' 
imaginative task ; or how an Author feels as if he were dis- 
missing some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when 
a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him for 
ever. Yet, I have nothing else to tell ; unless, indeed, I were 
to confess (which might be of less moment still) that no one 



Vlll PREFACE. 

can ever believe this Narrative, in the reading, more than I 
have believed it in the writing. 

Instead of looking back, therefore, I will look forward. I 
cannot close this Volume more agreeably to myself, than with a 
hopeful glance towards the time when I shall again put forth 
my two green leaves once a month, and with a faithful remem- 
brance of the genial sun and showers that have fallen on these 
leaves of David Copperfield, and made me happy. 

London, 

October, 1850. 



CONTENTS. 

. « 

PAGE 

Chapter I. I am born 1 

Chap. II. I observe 10 

Chap. III. I have a Change 21 

Chap. IV. I fall into Disgrace 33 

Chap. V. I am sent away from Home 46 

Chap. VI. I enlarge my Circle of Acquaintance 59 

Chap. VII. My " first half ' at Salem House 65 

Chap. VIII. My Holidays. Especially one happy Afternoon . . 78 

Chap. IX. I have a memorable Birthday ...... 88 

Chap. X. I become neglected, and am provided for 97 

Chap. XI. I begin Life on my own Account, and don't like it . .111 

Chap. XII. Liking Life on my own Account no better, I form a great 

Resolution . 122 

Chap. XIII. The Sequel of my Resolution 129 



PAGE 



x CONTENTS. 

Chap. XIV. My Aunt makes up her Mind about me . . . . 143 

Chap. XV. I make another Beginning 154 

Chap. XVI. I am a New Boy in more senses than one . . . 161 

Chap. XVII. Somebody turns up 176 

Chap. XVIII. A Retrospect 188 

Chap. XIX. I look about me, and make a Discovery . . . . 193 

Chap. XX. Steerforth's Home . . 205 

Chap. XXI. Little Em'ly 211 

Chap. XXII. Some old Scenes, and some new People j 225 

Chap. XXIII. I corroborate Mr. Dick, and choose a Profession . 240 

Chap. XXIV. My first Dissipation 251 

Chap. XXV. Good and bad Angels 257 

Chap. XXVI. I fall into Captivity ....... 271 

Chap. XXVII. Tommy Traddles 283 

Chap. XXVIII. Mr. Micawber's Gauntlet 289 

Chap. XXIX. I visit Steerforth at his Home, again . . .303 

Chap. XXX. A Loss ' . . . . . 308 

Chap. XXXI. A greater Loss 314 

Chap. XXXII. The Beginning of a long Journey . . . ■ . 321 

Chap. XXXIII. Blissful 334 



CONTENTS. xi 

PAGE 

Chap. XXXIV. My Aunt astonishes me ..... . 346 

Chap. XXXV. Depression .353 

Chap. XXXVI. Enthusiasm . 367 

Chap. XXXVII. A little Cold Water 379 

Chap. XXXVIII. A Dissolution of Partnership . . . . . 385 
Chap. XXXIX. Wickfield and Heep . . . . . .397 

Chap. XL. The Wanderer • ... 411 

Chap. XLI. Dora's Aunts 417 

Chap. XLII. Mischief 428 

Chap. XLIII. Another Retrospect .443 

Chap. XLIV. Our Housekeeping 449 

Chap. XLV. Mr. Dick fulfils my Aunt's Prediction . ... 460 

Chap. XLVI. Intelligence 471 

Chap. XLVII. Martha 481 

Chap. XLVIII. Domestic 489 

Chap. XLIX. I am involved in Mystery 497 

Chap. L. Mr. Peggotty's Dream comes true 506 

Chap. LI. The Beginning of a longer Journey ...... 513 

Chap. LII. I assist at an Explosion 525 

Chap. LI II. Another Retrospect 541 



xii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Chap. LIV. Mr. Micawber's Transactions 545 

Chap. LV. Tempest 556 

Chap. LVI. The new Wound, and the old 564 

Chap. LVII. The Emigrants . ' " 569 

Chap. LVIII. Absence 577 

Chap. LIX. Return 582 

Chap. LX. Agnes 594 

Chap. LXI. I am shown two interesting Penitents .... 600 

Chap. LXI I. A Light shines on my way 609 

Chap. LXIII. A Visitor 615 

Chap. LXIV. A last Retrospect .621 



LIST OP PLATES. 



PAGE 
FRONTISPIECE. 

OUR PEW AX CHURCH 11 

I AM HOSPITABLY RECEIYED BY MR. PEGGOTTY 23 

THE FRIENDLY WAITER AND I 49 

MY MUSICAL BREAKFAST 55 

STEERFORTH AND MR. MELL 70 

CHANGES AT HOME 79 

MRS. GUMMIDGE CASTS A DAMP ON OUR DEPARTURE 105 

MY MAGNIFICENT ORDER AT THE PUBLIC-HOUSE 117 

I MAKE MYSELF KNOWN TO MY AUNT 137 

THE MOMENTOUS INTERVIEW 149 

I RETURN TO THE DOCTOR'S AFTER THE PARTY 175 

SOMEBODY TURNS UP 182 

MY FIRST FALL IN LIFE 201 

WE ARRIVE UNEXPECTEDLY AT MR. PEGGOTTY's FIRESIDE 220 

I MAKE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF MISS MOWCHER 233 

MARTHA 233 

URIAH PERSISTS IN HOVERING NEAR US, AT THE DINNER PARTY . . . 262 

I FALL INTO CAPTIVITY 274 

WE ARE DISTURBED IN OUR COOKERY 292 



xiv LIST OF PLATES. 

TAGK 

I FIND MR. BARKIS "GOING OUT WITH THE TIDE " 313 

MR. PEGGOTTY AND MRS. STEERFORTH 330 

MY AUNT ASTONISHES ME 350 

MR. WICKFIELD AND HIS PARTNER WAIT UPON MY AUNT .... 364 

MR. MICAWBER DELIVERS SOME VALEDICTORY REMARKS 378 

TRADDLES MAKES A FIGURE IN PARLIAMENT, AND I REPORT HIM . . .386 

THE WANDERER 412 

TRADDLES AND I, IN CONFERENCE WITH THE MISSES SPENLOW . . . 420 

I AM MARRIED 447 

OUR HOUSEKEEPING 454 

MR. DICK FULFILS MY AUNT'S PREDICTION 465 

THE RIVER 482 

MR. PEGGOTTY'S DREAM COMES TRUE 512 

RESTORATION OF MUTUAL CONFIDENCE BETWEEN MR. AND MRS. MICAWBER . 539 

MY CHILD-WIFE'S OLD COMPANION 544 

I AM THE BEARER OF EVIL TIDINGS . ^ 

THE EMIGRANTS .... 575 

I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS 605 

A STRANGER CALLS TO SEE ME 615 



EKKATA. 



Page 74, line 7 from bottom of page, for " bo' " read " bor'." 
74, u 2 from bottom of page, make tbe same correction. 
76, " 14 from bottom of page, make tbe same correction. 

102, " 21 from top of page, make the same correction. 

102, twenty lines in advance, make the same correction. 

558, line 19 from bottom of page, for " Norwich" read " Ipswich." 



PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 



DAVID COPPERFIELD THE YOUNGER 



CHAPTER I. 

I AM BORN. 

WHETHER I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether 
that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. 
To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born 
(as I have been informed and believe) on a Eriday, at twelve o'clock at 
night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began 
to cry, simultaneously. 

In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by 
the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken 
a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of 
our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be 
unlucky in life ; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and 
spirits ; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all 
unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a 
Eriday night. 

I need say nothing here, on the first head, because nothing can show 
better than my history whether that prediction was verified or falsified 
by the result. On the second branch of the question, I will only 
remark, that unless I ran through that part of my inheritance while I 
was still a baby, I have not come into it yet. But I do not at all 
complain of having been kept out of this property ; and if anybody 
else should be in the present enjoyment of it, he is heartily welcome to 
keep it. 

I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the newspapers, 
at the low price of fifteen guineas. "Whether sea-going people were 
short of money about that time, or were short of faith and preferred 
cork-jackets, I don't know ; all I know is, that there was but one 
solitary bidding, and that was from an attorney connected with the bill- 
broking business, who offered two pounds in cash, and the balance in 

B 



2 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from drowning on any higher bargain. 
Consequently the advertisement was withdrawn at a dead loss— for as to 
sherry, my poor dear mother's own sherry was in the market then— and 
ten years afterwards the caul was put up in a raffle down in our 
part of the country, to fifty members at half-a-crown a head, the winner 
to spend five shillings. I was present myself, and I remember to 
have felt quite uncomfortable and confused, at a part of myself being 
disposed of in that way. The caul was won, I recollect, by an old lady 
with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced from it the stipulated 
five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopence halfpenny short— as it took 
an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic, to endeavour without 
any effect to prove to her. It is a fact which will be long remembered 
as remarkable down there, that she was never drowned,"" but died tri- 
umphantly in bed, at ninety-two. I have understood that it was, 
to the last, her proudest boast, that she never had been on the water in 
her life, except upon a bridge ; and that over her tea (to which she was 
extremely partial) she, to the last, expressed her indignation at the 
impiety of mariners and others, who had the presumption to go 
"meandering" about the world. It was in vain to represent to her 
that some conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from this ob- 
jectionable practice. She ahvays returned, with greater emphasis and 
with an instinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection, " Let us 
have no meandering." 

Not to meander, myself, at present, I will go back to my birth. 

I was born at Blunderstone, in Suffolk, or " thereby," as they say in 
Scotland. I was a posthumous child. My father's eyes had closed upon 
the light of this world six months, when mine opened on it. There is 
something strange to me, even now, in the reflection that he never saw 
me ; and something stranger yet in the shadowy remembrance that I have 
of my first childish associations with his white grave-stone in the church- 
yard, and of the indefinable compassion I used to feel for it lying out alone 
there in the dark night, when our little parlor was warm and bright with 
fire and candle, and the doors of our house were — almost cruelly, it seemed 
to me sometimes — bolted and locked against it. 

An aunt of my father's, and consequently a great-aunt of mine, of 
whom I shall have more to relate by and by, was the principal magnate 
of our family. Miss Trotwood, or Miss Betsey, as my poor mother always 
called her, when she sufficiently overcame her dread of this formidable 
personage to mention her at all (which was seldom), had been married 
to a husband younger than herself, who was very handsome, 1 except in the 
sense of the homely adage, "handsome is, that handsome does" — for he 
was strongly suspected of having beaten Miss Betsey, and even of having 
once, on a disputed question of supplies, made some hasty but determined 
arrangements to throw her out of a two pair of stairs' window. These 
evidences of an incompatibility of temper induced Miss Betsey to pay 
him off, and effect a separation by mutual consent. He went to India 
with his capital, and there, according to a wild legend in our family, he 
was once seen riding on an elephant, in company with a Baboon ; but 
I think it must have been a Baboo — or a Begum. Any how, from India 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 3 

tidings of his death reached home, within ten years. How they affected 
my aunt, nobody knew ; for immediately upon the separation, she took 
her maiden name again, bought a cottage in a hamlet on the sea-coast a 
long way off, established herself there as a single woman with one servant, 
and was understood to live secluded, ever afterwards, in an inflexible 
retirement. 

My father had once been a favorite of hers, I believe ; but she was 
mortally affronted by his marriage, on the ground that my mother was 
" a wax doll. " She had never seen my mother, but she knew her to be 
not yet twenty. My father and Miss Betsey never met again. He was 
double my mother's age when he married, and of but a delicate constitu- 
tion. He died a year afterwards, and, as I have said, six months before I 
came into the world. 

This was the state of matters, on the afternoon of, what I may be 
excused for calling, that eventful and important Friday. I can make no 
claim therefore to have known, at that time, how matters stood ; or to have 
any remembrance, founded on the evidence of my own senses, of what 
follows. 

My mother was sitting by the fire, but poorly in health, and very low 
in spirits, looking at it through her tears, and desponding heavily about 
herself and the fatherless little stranger, who was already welcomed by some 
grosses of prophetic pins, in a drawer up-stairs, to a world not at all excited 
on the subject of his arrival ; my mother, I say, was sitting by the fire, 
that bright, windy March afternoon, very timid and sad, and very doubtful 
of ever coming alive out of the trial that was before her, when, lifting her 
eyes as she dried them, to the window opposite, she saw a strange lady 
coming up the garden. 

My mother had a sure foreboding at the second glance, that it was Miss 
Betsey. The setting sun was glowing on the strange lady, over the 
garden-fence, and she came walking up to the door with a fell rigidity 
of figure and composure of countenance that could have belonged to 
nobody else. 

When she reached the house, she gave another proof of her identity. 
My father had often hinted that she seldom conducted herself like any 
ordinary Christian ; and now, instead of ringing the bell, she came and 
looked in at that identical window, pressing the end of her nose against 
the glass to that extent, that my poor dear mother used to say it became 
perfectly flat and white in a moment. 

She gave my mother such a turn, that I have always been convinced I 
am indebted to Miss Betsey for having been born on a Friday. 

My mother had left her chair in her agitation, and gone behind it in 
the corner. Miss Betsey, looking round the room, slowly and enquiringly, 
began on the other side, and carried her eyes on, like a Saracen's Head in 
a Dutch clock, until they reached my mother. Then she made a frown 
and a gesture to my mother, like one who was accustomed to be obeyed, 
to come and open the door. My mother went. 

" Mrs. David Copperfield, I think" said Miss Betsey ; the emphasis 
referring, perhaps, to my mother's mourning weeds, and her condition. 

" Yes," said my mother, faintly. 

b 2 



4 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPRRIENCE 

" Miss Trotwood," said the visitor. " You have heard of hcf, I dare 
say?" 

My mother answered she had had that pleasure. And she had a dis- 
agreeable consciousness of not appearing to imply that it had been an 
overpowering pleasure. 

" Now you see her," said Miss Betsey. My mother bent her head, and 
begged her to walk in. 

They went into the parlor my mother had come from, the fire in the 
best room on the other side of the passage not being lighted — not having 
been lighted, indeed, since my father's funeral ; and when they were both 
seated, and Miss Betsey said nothing, my mother, after vainly trying to 
restrain herself, began to cry. 

" Oh tut, tut, tut ! " said Miss Betsey, in a hurry. " Don't do that ! 
Come, come ! " 

My mother couldn't help it notwithstanding, so she cried until she had 
had her cry out. 

" Take off your cap, child," said Miss Betsey, " and let me see you." 

My mother was too much afraid of her to refuse compliance with this 
odd request, if she had any disposition to do so. Therefore she did as 
she was told, and did it with such nervous hands that her hair (which was 
luxuriant and beautiful) fell all about her face. 

" Why, bless my heart ! " exclaimed Miss Betsey. " You are a very 
Baby!" 

My mother was, no doubt, unusually youthful in appearance even 
for her years ; she hung her head, as if it were her fault, poor thing, 
and said, sobbing, that indeed she was afraid she was but a childish 
widow, and would be but a childish mother if she lived. In a short 
pause which ensued, she had a fancy that she felt Miss Betsey touch her 
hair, and that with no ungentle hand ; but, looking at her, in her timid 
hope, she found that lady sitting with the skirt of her dress tucked up, 
her hands folded on one knee, and her feet upon the fender, frowning at 
the fire. 

" In the name of Heaven," said Miss Betsey, suddenly, " why Kookery ? " 

" Do you mean the house, ma'am? " asked my mother. 

" Why Bookery ? " said Miss Betsey. " Cookery would have been 
more to the purpose, if you had had any practical ideas of life, either of 
you." 

"The name was Mr. Copperfield's choice," returned my mother. 
"When he bought the house, he liked to think that there were rooks 
about it." 

The evening wind made such a disturbance just now, among some tall 
old elm-trees at the bottom of the garden, that neither my mother nor 
Miss Betsey could forbear glancing that way. As the elms bent to one 
another, like giants who were whispering secrets, and after a few seconds 
of such repose, fell into a violent flurry, tossing their wild arms about, as 
if their late confidences were really too wicked for their peace of mind, 
some weather-beaten ragged old rooks'-nests, burdening their higher 
branches, swung like wrecks upon a stormy sea. 
" Where are the birds? " asked Miss Betsey. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 5 

« The ?" My mother had been thinking of something else. 

" The rooks — what has become of them ?" asked Miss Betsey. 

" There have not been any since we have lived here," said my mother. 
" We thought — Mr. Copperfield thought — it was quite a large rookery ; 
but the nests were very old ones, and the birds have deserted them a 
long while." 

" David Copperfield all over!" cried Miss Betsey. "David Copper- 
field from head to foot ! Calls a house a rookery when there 's not a rook 
near it, and takes the birds on trust, because he sees the nests ! " 

" Mr. Copperfield," returned my mother, " is dead, and if you dare to 
speak unkindly of him to me " 

My poor dear mother, I suppose, had some momentary intention of 
committing an assault and battery upon my aunt, who could easily have 
settled her with one hand, even if my mother had been in far better 
training for such an encounter than she was that evening. But it passed 
with the action of rising from her chair- ; and she sat down again very 
meekly, and fainted. 

When she came to herself, or when Miss Betsey had restored her, 
whichever it was, she found the latter standing at the window. The 
twilight was by this time shading down into darkness; and dimly as 
they saw each other, they could not have done that without the aid of the 
fire. 

" Well ? " said Miss Betsey, coming back to her chair, as if she had only 
been taking a casual look at the prospect ; " and when do you expect ; ' 

" I am all in a tremble," faltered my mother. " I don't know what 's 
the matter. I shall die, I am sure ! " 

" No, no, no," said Miss Betsey. " Have some tea." 

" Oh dear me, dear me, do you think it will do me any good ? " cried 
my mother in a helpless manner. 

" Of course it will," said Miss Betsey. " It 's nothing but fancy. 
What do you call your girl ? " 

" I don't know that it will be a girl, yet, ma'am," said my mother 
innocently. 

" Bless the Baby ! " exclaimed Miss Betsey, unconsciously quoting the 
second sentiment of the pincushion in the drawer up-stairs, but applying 
it to my mother instead of me, "I don't mean that. I mean your 
servant-girl." 

« Peggotty," said my mother. 

" Peggotty !" repeated Miss Betsey, with some indignation. " Do you 
mean to say, child, that any human being has gone into a Christian church, 
and got herself named Peggotty?" 

" It 's her surname," said my mother, faintly. " Mr. Copperfield called 
her by it, because her Christian name was the same as mine." 

" Here ! Peggotty ! " cried Miss Betsey, opening the parlor-door. " Tea. 
Your mistress is a little unwell. Don't dawdle." 

Having issued this mandate with as much potentiality as if she had 
been a recognised authority in the house ever since it had been a house, 
and having looked out to confront the amazed Peggotty coming along the 
passage with a candle at the sound of a strange voice, Miss Betsey shut 



6 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

the door again, and sat down as before : with her feet on the fender, the 
skirt of her dress tucked up, and her hands folded on one knee. 

" You were speaking about its being a girl," said Miss Betsey. " I 
have no doubt it will be a girl. I have a presentiment that it must be a 
girl. Now child, from the moment of the birth of this girl — " 

" Perhaps boy," my mother took the liberty of putting in. 

" I tell you I have a presentiment that it must be a girl," returned 
Miss Betsey. " Don't contradict. From the moment of this girl's birth, 
child, I intend to be her friend. I intend to be her godmother, and I beg 
you'll call her Betsey Trotwood Copperfield. There must be no mistakes 
in life with this Betsey Trotwood. There must be no trifling with her 
affections, poor dear. She must be well brought up, and well guarded 
from reposing any foolish confidences where they are not deserved. I 
must make that my care." 

There was a twitch of Miss Betsey's head, after each of these sentences, 
as if her own old wrongs were working within her, and she repressed any 
plainer reference to them by strong constraint. So my mother suspected, 
at least, as she observed her by the low glimmer of the fire : too much 
scared by Miss Betsey, too uneasy in herself, and too subdued and be- 
wildered altogether, to observe anything very clearly, or to know what 
to say. 

"And was David good to you, child? " asked Miss Betsey, when she 
had been silent for a little while, and these motions of her head had 
gradually ceased. " Were you comfortable together ? " 

"We were very happy," said my mother. " Mr. Copperfield was only 
too good to me." 

11 What, he spoilt you, I suppose ? " returned Miss Betsey. 

" For being quite alone and dependent on myself in this rough world 
again, yes, I fear he did indeed," sobbed my mother. 

" Well ! Don't cry ! " said Miss Betsey. " You were not equally matched, 
child — if any two people can be equally matched — and so I asked the 
question. You were an orphan, weren't you?" 

"Yes." 

"And a governess?" 

" I was nursery-governess in a family where Mr. Copperfield came to 
visit. Mr. Copperfield was very kind to me, and took a great deal of 
notice of me, and paid me a good deal of attention, and at last proposed 
to me. And I accepted him. And so we were married," said my mother 
simply. 

" Ha ! poor Baby ! " mused Miss Betsey, with her frown still bent upon 
the fire. "Do you know anything ?" 

" I beg your pardon, ma'am," faltered my mother. 

" About keeping house, for instance," said Miss Betsey. 

" Not much, I fear," returned my mother. "Not so much as I could 
wish. But Mr. Copperfield was teaching me — " 

(" Much he knew about it himself ! ") said Miss Betsey in a parenthesis. 

— " And I hope I should have improved, being very anxious to learn, 
and he very patient to teach, if the great misfortune of his death" — my 
mother broke down again here, and coidd get no farther. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 7 

" Well, well ! " said Miss Betsey. 

— " I kept my housekeeping-book regularly, and balanced it with Mr. 
Copperfield every night," cried my mother in another burst of distress, 
and breaking down again. 

" Well, well ! " said Miss Betsey. " Don't cry any more." 

— " And I am sure we never had a word of difference respecting it, 
except when Mr. Copperfield objected to my threes and fives being too 
much like each other, or to my putting curly tails to my sevens and nines," 
resumed my mother in another burst, and breaking down again. 

" You'll make yourself ill," said Miss Betsey, " and you know that will 
not be good either for you or for my god-daughter. Come ! You mustn't 
do it S " 

This argument had some share in quieting my mother, though her 
increasing indisposition perhaps had a larger one. There was an interval 
of silence, only broken by Miss Betsey's occasionally ejaculating "Ha! " 
as she sat with her feet upon the fender. 

" David had bought an annuity for himself with his money, I know," 
said she, by and by. " What did he do for you ? " 

"Mr. Copperfield," said my mother, answering with some difficulty, 
"was so considerate and good as to secure the reversion of a part of it 
to me." 

" How much? " asked Miss Betsey. 

" A hundred and five pounds a year," said my mother. 

" He might have done worse," said my aunt. 

The word was appropriate to the moment. My mother was so much 
worse that Peggotty, coming in with the teaboard and candles, and seeing 
at a glance how ill she was, — as Miss Betsey might have done sooner if 
there had been light enough, — conveyed her up-stairs to her own room 
with all speed ; and immediately dispatched Ham Peggotty, her nephew, 
who had been for some days past secreted in the house, unknown to my 
mother, as a special messenger in case of emergency, to fetch the nurse 
and doctor. 

Those allied powers were considerably astonished, when they arrived 
within a few minutes of each other, to find an unknown lady of portentous 
appearance, sitting before the fire, with her bonnet tied over her left arm, 
stopping her ears with jewellers' cotton. Peggotty knowing nothing 
about her, and my mother saying nothing about her, she was quite a 
mystery in the parlor ; and the fact of her having a magazine of jewellers' 
cotton in her pocket, and sticking the article in her ears in that way, did 
not detract from the solemnity of her presence. 

The doctor having been up-stairs and come down again, and havino- 
satisfied himself, I suppose, that there was a probability of this unknown 
lady and himself having to sit there, face to face, for some hours, laid 
himself out to be polite and social. He was the meekest of his sex, the 
mildest of little men. He sidled in and out of a room, to take up the 
less space. He walked as softly as the Ghost in Hamlet, and more 
slowly. He carried his head on one side, partly in modest depreciation 
of himself, partly in modest propitiation of everybody else. It is nothing 
to say that he hadn't a word to throw at a dog. He couldn't have 



8 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

thrown a word at a mad dog. He might have offered him one gently, 
or half a one, or a fragment of one ; for he spoke as slowly as he walked ; 
but he wouldn't have been rude to him, and he couldn't have been 
quick with him, for any earthly consideration. 

Mr. Chillip, looking mildly at my aunt, with his head on one side, 
and making her a little bow, said, in allusion to the jewellers' cotton, as 
he softly touched his left ear : 

" Some local irritation, ma'am ? " 

"What!" replied my aunt, pulling the cotton out of one ear like 
a cork. 

Mr. Chillip was so alarmed by her abruptness — as he told my mother 
afterwards — that it was a mercy he didn't lose his presence of mind. 
But he repeated, sweetly : 

" Some local irritation, ma'am ? " 

"Nonsense!" replied my aunt, and corked herself again, at one 
blow. 

Mr. Chillip could do nothing after this, but sit and look at her feebly, 
as she sat and looked at the fire, until he was called up-stairs again. 
After some quarter of an hour's absence, he returned. 

" Well ? " said my aunt, taking the cotton out of the ear nearest 
to him. 

"Well, ma'am," returned Mr. Chillip, "we are — we are proo-ressins; 
slowly, ma am. 

" Ba — a — ah ! " said my aunt, with a perfect shake on the contemptuous 
interjection. And corked herself, as before. 

Eeally — really — as Mr. Chillip told my mother, he was almost shocked ; 
speaking in a professional point of view alone, he was almost shocked. 
But he sat and looked at her, notwithstanding, for nearly two hours, as 
she sat looking at the fire, until he was again called out. After another 
absence, he again returned. 

" Well ? " said my aunt, taking out the cotton on that side again. 

"Well, ma'am," returned Mr. Chillip, "we are — we are progressing 
slowly, ma'am." 

" Ya — a — ah! " said my aunt. With such a snarl at him, that Mr. Chillip 
absolutely could not bear it. It was really calculated to break his spirit, 
he said afterwards. He preferred to go and sit upon the stairs, in the 
dark and a strong draught, until he was again sent for. 

Ham Peggotty, who went to the national school, and was a very 
dragon at his catechism, and who may therefore be regarded as a credible 
witness, reported next day, that happening to peep in at the parlor-door 
an hour after this, he was instantly descried by Miss Betsey, then walking 
to and fro in a state of agitation, and pounced upon before he could make 
his escape. That there were now occasional sounds of feet and voices 
overhead which he inferred the cotton did not exclude, from the circum- 
stance of his evidently being clutched by the lady as a victim on whom to 
expend her superabundant agitation when the sounds were loudest. That, 
marching him constantly up and down by the collar (as if he had been 
taking too much laudanum), she, at those times, shook him, rumpled his 
hair, made light of his linen, stopped Ms ears as if she confounded them 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 9 

with her own, and otherwise touzled and maltreated him. This was in 
part confirmed by his aunt, who saw him at half-past twelve o'clock, 
soon after his release, and affirmed that he was then as red as I was. 

The mild Mr. Chillip could not possibly bear malice at such a time, if 
at any time. He sidled into the parlor as soon as he was at liberty, and 
said to my aunt in his meekest manner : 

"Well, ma'am, I am happy to congratulate you." 

" What upon ? " said my aunt, sharply. 

Mr Chillip was fluttered again, by the extreme severity of my aunt's 
manner ; so he made her a little bow and gave her a little smile, to mollify 
her. 

" Mercy on the man, what 's he doing ! " cried my aunt, impatiently. 
" Can 't he speak ? " 

"Be calm, my dear ma'am," said Mr. Chillip, in his softest accents. 
" There is no longer any occasion for uneasiness, ma'am. Be calm." 

It has since been considered almost a miracle that my aunt didn 't shake 
him, and shake what he had to say, out of him. She only shook her own 
head at him, but in a way that made him quail. 

" Well, ma'am," resumed Mr. Chillip, as soon as he had courage, " I 
am happy to congratulate you. All is now over, ma'am, and well over." 

During the five minutes or so that Mr. Chillip devoted to the delivery 
of this oration, my aunt eyed him narrowly. 

" How is she?" said my aunt, folding her arms with her bonnet still 
tied on one of them. 

" Well, ma'am, she will soon be quite comfortable, I hope," returned 
Mr. Chillip. " Quite as comfortable as we can expect a young mother to 
be, under these melancholy domestic circumstances. There cannot be any 
objection to your seeing her presently, ma'am. It may do her good." 

" And she. How is she ?" said my aunt, sharply. 

Mr. Chillip laid his head a little more on one side, and looked at my 
aunt like an amiable bird. 

" The baby," said my aunt. " How is she ?" 

" Ma'am," returned Mr. Chillip, " I apprehended you had known. 
It's a boy." 

My aunt said never a word, but took her bonnet by the strings, in 
the manner of a sling, aimed a blow at Mr. Chillip's head with it, put 
it on bent, walked out, and never came back. She vanished like a dis- 
contented fairy; or like one of those supernatural beings, whom it 
was popularly supposed I was entitled to see ; and never came back any 
more. 

No. I lay in my basket, and my mother lay in her bed ; but Betsey 
Trotwood Copperfield was for ever in the land of dreams and shadows, 
the tremendous region whence I had so lately travelled ; and the light 
upon the window of our room shone out upon the earthly bourne of all 
such travellers, and the mound above the ashes and the dust that once 
was he, without whom I had never been. 



10 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 



CHAPTEE II. 

I OBSERVE. 

The first objects that assume a distinct presence before me, as I look 
far back, into the blank of my infancy, are my mother with her pretty 
hair and youthful shape, and Peggotty with no shape at all, and eyes so 
dark that they seemed to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, 
and cheeks and arms so hard and red that I wondered the birds didn 't 
peck her in preference to apples. 

I believe I can remember these two at a little distance apart, dwarfed 
to my sight by stooping down or kneeling on the floor, and I going 
unsteadily from the one to the other. I have an impression on my mind 
which I cannot distinguish from actual remembrance, of the touch of 
Peggotty's fore-finger as she used to hold it out to me, and of its being 
roughened by needlework, like a pocket nutmeg-grater. 

This may be fancy, though I think the memory of most of us can go 
farther back into such times than many of us suppose ; just as I believe 
the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite 
wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most 
grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater pro- 
priety be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it ; the 
rather, as I generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness, and 
gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an inheritance 
they have preserved from their childhood. 

I might have a misgiving that lam " meandering " in stopping to say 
this, but that it brings me to remark that I build these conclusions, in 
part upon my own experience of myself ; and if it should appear from any- 
thing I may set down in this narrative that I was a child of close observa- 
tion, or that as a man I have a strong memory of my childhood, I 
undoubtedly lay claim to both of these characteristics. 

Looking back, as I was saying, into the blank of my infancy, the first 
objects I can remember as standing out by themselves from a confusion of 
things, are my mother and Peggotty. What else do I remember ? Let 
me see. 

There comes out of the cloud, our house — not new to me, but quite 
familiar, in its earliest remembrance. On the ground-floor is Peggotty's 
kitchen, opening into a back yard ; with a pigeon-house on a pole, in the 
centre, without any pigeons in it ; a great dog-kennel in a corner, without 
any dog ; and a quantity of fowls that look terribly tall to me, walking 
about, in a menacing and ferocious manner. There is one cock who 
gets upon a post to crow, and seems to take particular notice of me as I 
look at him through the kitchen- window, who makes me shiver, he is so 
fierce. Of the geese outside the side-gate who come waddling after me 
with their long necks stretched out when I go that way, I dream at night : 
as a man environed by wild beasts might dream of lions. 



OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 11 

Here is a long passage — what an enormous perspective I make of it! — 
leading from Peggotty's kitchen to the front-door. A dark store-room 
opens out of it, and that is a place to be run past at night ; for I don't 
know what may be among those tubs and jars and old tea-chests, when 
there is nobody in there with a dimly-burning light, letting a mouldy air 
come out at the door, in which there is the smell of soap, pickles, pepper, 
candles, and coffee, all at one whiff. Then there are the two parlors : the 
parlor in which we sit of an evening, my mother and I and Peggotty — 
for Peggotty is quite our companion, when her work is done and we are 
alone — and the best parlor where we sit on a Sunday ; grandly, but not 
so comfortably. There is something of a doleful air about that room to 
me, for Peggotty has told me — I don't know when, but apparently ages 
go — about my father's funeral, and the company having their black cloaks put 
on. One Sunday night my mother reads to Peggotty and me in there, 
how Lazarus was raised up from the dead. And I am so frightened that 
they are afterwards obliged to take me out of bed, and shew me the quiet 
churchyard out of the bedroom window, with the dead all lying in their 
graves at rest, below the solemn moon. 

There is nothing half so green that I know anywhere, as the grass of 
that churchyard ; nothing half so shady as its trees ; nothing half so quiet 
as its tombstones. The sheep are feeding there, when I kneel up, early 
in the morning, in my little bed in a closet within my mother's room, to 
look out at it ; and I see the red light shining on the sun-dial, and think 
within myself, " Is the sun-dial glad, I wonder, that it can tell the time 
again ? u 

Here is our pew in the church. What a high-backed pew ! With a 
window near it, out of which our house can be seen, and is seen many- 
times during the morning's service, by Peggotty, who likes to make her- 
self as sure as she can that it 's not being robbed, or is not in flames. 
But though Peggotty's eye wanders, she is much offended if mine does, 
and frowns to me, as I stand upon the seat, that I am to look at the 
clergyman. But I can't always look at him — I know him without that 
white thing on, and I am afraid of his wondering why I stare so, and 
perhaps stopping the service to enquire — and what am I to do? It's 
a dreadful thing to gape, but I must do something. I look at my 
mother, but she pretends not to see me. I look at a boy in the 
aisle, and lie makes faces at me. I look at the sunlight coming in at 
the open door through the porch, and there I see a stray sheep — I don't 
mean a sinner, but mutton — half making up his mind to come into the 
church. I feel that if I looked at him any longer, I might be tempted 
to say something out loud; and what would become of me then! I 
look up at the monumental tablets on the wall, and try to think of 
Mr. Bodgers late of this parish, and what the feelings of Mrs. Bodgers must 
have been, when affliction sore, long time Mr. Bodgers bore, and physi- 
cians were in vain. I wonder whether they called in Mr. Chillip, and he 
was in vain ; and if so, how he likes to be reminded of it once a week. 
I look from Mr. Chillip, in his Sunday neckcloth, to the pulpit; 
and think what a good place it would be to play in, and what a castle 
it would make, with another boy coming up the stairs to attack it, and 



12 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

having the velvet cushion with the tassels thrown down on his head. 
In time my eyes gradually shut up ; and, from seeming to hear the 
clergyman singing a drowsy song in the heat, I hear nothing, until I 
fall off the seat with a crash, and am taken out, more dead than alive, by 
Peggotty. 

And now I see the outside of our house, with the latticed bedroom- 
windows standing open to let in the sweet-smelling air, and the ragged 
old rooks' -nests still dangling in the elm-trees at the bottom of the front 
garden. Now I am in the garden at the back, beyond the yard where the 
empty pigeon-house and dog-kennel are — a very preserve of butterflies, as 
I remember it, with a high fence, and a gate and padlock ; where the 
fruit clusters on the trees, riper and richer than fruit has ever been since, 
in any other garden, and where my mother gathers some in a basket, 
while I stand by, bolting furtive gooseberries, and trying to look unmoved. 
A great wind rises, and the summer is gone in a moment. We are 
playing in the winter twilight, dancing about the parlor. When my 
mother is out of breath and rests herself in an elbow-chair, I watch her 
winding her bright curls round her fingers, and straitening her waist, and 
nobody knows better than I do that she likes to look so well, and is proud 
of being so pretty. 

That is among my very earliest impressions. That, and a sense that 
we were both a little afraid of Peggotty, and submitted ourselves in most 
things to her direction, were among the first opinions — if they may be so 
called — that I ever derived from what I saw. 

Peggotty and I were sitting one night by the parlor fire, alone. I 
had been reading to Peggotty about crocodiles. I must have read 
very perspicuously, or the poor soul must have been deeply interested, for I 
remember she had a cloudy impression, after I had done, that they were a sort 
of vegetable. I was tired of reading, and dead sleepy ; but having leave, as a 
high treat, to sit up until my mother came home from spending the evening 
at a neighbour's, I would rather have died upon my post (of course) than 
have gone to bed. I had reached that stage of sleepiness when Peggotty 
seemed to swell and grow immensely large. I propped my eyelids open 
with my two forefingers, and looked perseveringly at her as she sat at 
work; at the little bit of wax-candle she kept for her thread — how 
old it looked, being so wrinkled in all directions ! — at the little house with 
a thatched roof, where the yard-measure lived ; at her work-box with a 
sliding lid, with a view of Saint Paul's Cathedral (with a pink dome) painted 
on the top ; at the brass thimble on her finger ; at herself, whom I 
thought lovely. I felt so sleepy, that I knew if I lost sight of anything, 
for a moment, I was gone. 

"Peggotty," says I, suddenly, "were you ever married?" 

" Lord, Master Davy," replied Peggotty. " What 's put marriage in 
your head ! " 

She answered with such a start, that it quite awoke me. And then she 
stopped in her work, and looked at me, with her needle drawn out to its 
thread's length. 

" But were you ever married, Peggotty ? " says I. " You are a very 
handsome woman, an't you ? " 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 13 

I thought her in a different style from my mother, certainly ; but of 
another school of beauty, I considered her a perfect example. There was 
a red velvet footstool in the best parlor, on which my mother had painted 
a nosegay. The ground-work of that stool, and Peggotty's complexion, 
appeared to me to be one and the same thing. The stool was smooth, 
and Peggotty was rough, but that made no difference. 

" Me handsome, Davy !" said Peggotty. " Lawk, no, my dear ! But 
what put marriage in your head?" 

" I don't know ! — You mustn't marry more than one person at a time, 
may you, Peggotty ?" 

" Certainly not," says Peggotty, with the promptest decision. 

" But if you marry a person, and the person dies, why then you may 
marry another person, mayn't you, Peggotty ? " 

" You may," says Peggotty, " if you choose, my dear. That 's a 
matter of opinion." 

" But what is your opinion, Peggotty ? " said I. 

I asked her, and looked curiously at her, because she looked so curiously 
at me. 

" My opinion is," said Peggotty, taking her eyes from me, after a little 
indecision and going on with her work, "that I never was married myself, 
Master Davy, and that I don't expect to be. That's all I know about the 
subject." 

" You an't cross, I suppose, Peggotty, are you? " said I, after sitting- 
quiet for a minute. 

I really thought she was, she had been so short with me ; but I was 
quite mistaken : for she laid aside her work, (which was a stocking of her 
own,) and opening her arms wide, took my curly head within them, and 
gave it a good squeeze. I know it was a good squeeze, because, being- 
very plump, whenever she made any little exertion after she was dressed, 
some of the buttons on the back of her gown tlew off. And I recol- 
lect two bursting to the opposite side of the parlor, while she was 
hugging me. 

" Now let me hear some more about the Crorkindills," said Peggotty, 
who was not quite right in the name yet, " for I an't heard half 
enough." 

I couldn't quite understand why Peggotty looked so queer, or why she 
was so ready to go back to the crocodiles. However, we returned to those 
monsters, with fresh wakefulness on my part, and we left their eggs in 
the sand for the sun to hatch ; and we ran away from them, and baffled 
them by constantly turning, which they were unable to do quickly, on 
account of their unwieldy make; and we went into the water after them, 
as natives, and put sharp pieces of timber down their throats ; and in 
short we ran the whole crocodile gauntlet. / did at least ; but I had my 
doubts of Peggotty, who was thoughtfully sticking her needle into various 
parts of her face and arms, all the time. 

We had exhausted the crocodiles, and begun with the alligators, when 
the garden-bell rang. We went out to the door ; and there was my 
mother, looking unusually pretty, I thought, and with her a gentleman 
with beautiful black hair and whiskers, who had walked home with us from 
church last Sunday. 



14 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

As my mother stooped down on the threshhold to take me in her arms 
and kiss me, the gentleman said I was a more highly privileged little 
fellow than a monarch — or something like that ; for my later understanding- 
comes, I am sensible, to my aid here. 

" What does that mean?" I asked him, over her shoulder. 

He patted me on the head ; but somehow, I didn't like him or his deep 
voice, and I was jealous that his hand should touch my mother's in 
touching me — which it did. I put it away, as well as I could. 

" Oh Davy ! " remonstrated my mother. 

" Dear boy ! " said the gentleman. " I cannot wonder at his devotion! " 

I never saw such a beautiful color on my mother's face before. She 
gently chid me for being rude ; and, keeping me close to her shawl, turned 
to thank the gentleman for taking so much trouble as to bring her home. 
She put out her hand to him as she spoke, and, as he met it with his own, 
she glanced, I thought, at me. 

" Let us say ' good night,' my fine boy," said the gentleman, when he 
had bent his head — / saw him ! — over my mother's little glove. 

" Goodnight!" said I. 

" Come ! Let us be the best friends in the world ! " said the gentleman, 
laughing. " Shake hands ! " 

My right hand was in my mother's left, so I gave him the other. 

" Why that's the wrong hand, Davy ! " laughed the gentleman. 

My mother drew my right hand forward, but I was resolved, for my 
former reason, not to give it him, and I did not. I gave him the other, and 
he shook it heartily, and said I was a brave fellow, and went away. 

At this minute I see him turn round in the garden, and give us a last 
look with his ill-omened black eyes, before the door was shut. 

Peggotty, who had not said a word or moved a finger, secured the 
fastenings instantly, and we all went into the parlor. My mother, con- 
trary to her usual habit, instead of coming to the elbow-chair by the fire, 
remained at the other end of the room, and sat singing to herself. 

" — Hope you have had a pleasant evening, ma'am," said Peggotty, 
standing as stiff as a barrel in the centre of the room, with a candlestick 
in her hand. 

" Much obliged to you, Peggotty," returned my mother, in a cheerful 
voice, " I have had a very pleasant evening." 

"A stranger or so makes an agreeable change," suggested Peggotty. 

" A very agreeable change indeed," returned my mother. 

Peggotty continuing to stand motionless in the middle of the room, 
and my mother resuming her singing, I fell asleep, though I was not so 
sound asleep but that I could hear voices, without hearing what they said. 
When I half awoke from this uncomfortable dose, I found Peggotty and 
my mother both in tears, and both talking. 

"Not such a one as this, Mr. Copperfield wouldn't have liked," said 
Peggotty. " That I say, and that I swear ! " 

" Good Heavens ! " cried my mother. " You '11 drive me mad ! Was 
ever any poor girl so ill-used by her servants as I am ! Why do I do 
mvself the injustice of calling myself a girl ? Have I never been married, 
Peggotty?" 



OF DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 15 

" God knows you have, ma'am," returned Peggotty. 

" Then how can you dare/' said my mother — " you know I don't mean 
how can you dare, Peggotty, but how can you have the heart — to make me 
so uncomfortable and say such bitter things to me, when you are well 
aware that I haven't, out of this place, a single friend to turn to ! " 

" The more 's the reason," returned Peggotty, " for saying that it 
won't do. No ! That it won't do. No ! No price could make it do. 
No ! " — I thought Peggotty would have thrown the candlestick away, 
she was so emphatic with it. 

" How can you be so aggravating," said my mother, shedding 
more tears than before, "as to talk in such an unjust manner ! How 
can you go on as if it was all settled and arranged, Peggotty, when I tell 
you over and over again, you cruel thing, that beyond the commonest 
civilities nothing has passed ! You talk of admiration. What am I 
to do ? If people are so silly as to indulge the sentiment, is it my fault ? 
What am I to do, I ask you ? Would you wish me to shave my head 
and black my face, or disfigure myself with a burn, or a scald, or something 
of that sort ? I dare say you would, Peggotty. I dare say you 'd quite 
enjoy it," 

Peggotty seemed to take this aspersion very much to heart, I thought. 

" And my dear boy," cried my mother, coming to the elbow-chair in 
which I was, and caressing me, " my own little Davy ! Is it to be hinted 
to me that I am wanting in affection for my precious treasure, the dearest 
little fellow that ever was ! " 

" Nobody never went and hinted no such a thing," said Peggotty. 

"You did, Peggotty ! " returned my mother. "You know you did. 
What else was it possible to infer from what you said, you unkind creature, 
when you know as well as I do, that on his account only last quarter I 
wouldn't buy myself a new parasol, though that old green one is frayed 
the whole way up, and the fringe is perfectly mangy. Y^ou know it is, 
Peggotty. You can't deny it." Then, turning affectionately to me, with 
her cheek against mine, " Am I a naughty mama to you, Davy ? Am I a 
nasty, cruel, selfish, bad mama ? Say I am, my child ; say ' yes ; ' dear boy, 
and Peggotty will love you, and Peggotty's love is a great deal better 
than mine, Davy. / dont love you at all, do I ? " 

At this, we all fell a- crying together. I think I was the loudest of the 
party, but I am sure we were all sincere about it. I was quite heart- 
broken myself, and am afraid that in the first transports of wounded ten- 
derness I called Peggotty a " Beast." That honest creature was in deep 
affliction, I remember, and must have become quite buttonless on the 
occasion ; for a little volley of those explosives went off, when, after 
having made it up with my mother, she kneeled down by the elbow- 
chair, and made it up with me. 

We went to bed greatly dejected. My sobs kept waking me, for a long 
time ; and when one very strong sob quite hoisted me up in bed, I found 
my mother sitting on the coverlet, and leaning over me. I fell asleep in 
her arms, after that, and slept soundly. 

Whether it was the following Sunday when I saw the gentleman again, 
or whether there was any greater lapse of time before he reappeared, I 



16 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

cannot recal. I don't profess to be clear abont dates. But there he was, 
in church, and he walked home with us afterwards. He came in, too, to 
look at a famous geranium we had, in the parlor-window. It did not 
appear to me that he took much notice of it, but before he went he asked 
my mother to give him a bit of the blossom. She begged him to choose 
it for himself, but he refused to do that — I could not understand why — 
so she plucked it for him, and gave it into his hand. He said he would 
never, never, part with it any more ; and I thought he must be quite a fool 
not to know that it would fall to pieces in a day or two. 

Peggotty began to be less with us, of an evening, than she had always 
been. My mother deferred to her very much — more than usual, it occurred 
to me — and we were all three excellent friends ; still we were different 
from what we used to be, and were not so comfortable among our- 
selves. Sometimes I fancied that Peggotty perhaps objected to my 
mother's wearing all the pretty dresses she had in her drawers, or to her 
going so often to visit at that neighbour's; but I couldn't, to my 
satisfaction, make out how it was. 

Gradually, I became used to seeing the gentleman with the black 
whiskers. I liked him no better than at first, and had the same uneasy 
jealousy of him ; but if I had any reason for it beyond a child's instinctive 
dislike, and a general idea that Peggotty and I could make much of my 
mother without any help, it certainly was not the reason that I might have 
found if I had been older. No such thing came into my mind, or near 
it. I could observe, in little pieces, as it were ; but as to making a net of 
a number of these pieces, and catching anybody in it, that was, as 
yet, beyond me. 

One autumn morning I was with my mother in the front garden, when 
Mr. Murdstone — I knew him by that name now — came by, on horseback. 
He reined up his horse to salute my mother, and said he was going to 
Lowestoft to see some friends who were there with a yacht, and 
merrily proposed to take me on the saddle before him if I would like the 
ride. 

The air was so clear and pleasant, and the horse seemed to like the idea 
of the ride so much himself, as he stood snorting and pawing at the 
garden-gate, that I had a great desire to go. So I was sent up-stairs to 
Peggotty to be made spruce ; and in the meantime Mr. Murdstone dis- 
mounted, and, with his horse's bridle drawn over his arm, walked slowly 
up and down on the outer side of the sweetbriar fence, while my mother 
walked slowly up and down on the inner to keep him company. I recol- 
lect Peggotty and T peeping out at them from my little window ; I recol- 
lect how closely they appeared to be examining the sweetbriar between 
them, as they strolled along ; and how, from being in a perfectly angelic 
temper, Peggotty turned cross in a moment, and brushed my hair the 
wrong way, excessively hard. . , „ : 

Mr. Murdstone and I were soon off, and trotting along on the green 
turf by the side of the road. He held me quite easily with one arm, 
and I don't think I was restless usually ; but I could not make up my 
mind to sit in front of him without turning my head sometimes, and 
looking up in his face. He had that kind of shallow black eye — I want 



OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 17 

a better word to express an eye that has no depth in it to be looked into — 
which, when it is abstracted, seems from some peculiarity of light to be dis- 
figured, for a moment at a time, by a cast. Several times when I glanced 
at him, I observed that appearance with a sort of awe, and wondered what 
* he was thinking about so closely. His hair and whiskers were blacker 
and thicker, looked at so near, than even I had given them credit for 
being. A squareness about the lower part of his face, and the dotted 
indication of the strong black beard he shaved close every day, reminded me 
of the wax-work that had travelled into our neighbourhood some half-a- 
year before. This, his regular eyebrows, and the rich white, and black, 
and brown, of his complexion — confound his complexion, and his 
memory ! — made me think him, in spite of my misgivings, a very 
handsome man. I have no doubt that my poor dear mother thought 
him so too. 

We went to an hotel by the sea, where two gentlemen were smoking 
cigars in a room by themselves. Each of them was lying on at least four 
chairs, and had a large rough jacket on. In a corner was a heap of coats 
and boat-cloaks, and a flag, all bundled up together. 

They both rolled on to their feet in an untidy sort of manner when 
we came in, and said " Halloa, Murdstone ! We thought you were 
dead ! " 

" Not yet," said Mr. Murdstone. 

"And who's this shaver?" said one of the gentlemen, taking hold 
of me. 

" That 's Davy," returned Mr. Murdstone. 

" Davy who ? " said the gentleman. " Jones ? " 

" Copperfield," said Mr. Murdstone. 

" What ! Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield's incumbrance ? " cried the 
gentleman. " The pretty little widow ? " 

" Quinion," said Mr. Murdstone, " take care, if you please. Somebody 's 
sharp." 

" Who is ? " asked the gentleman, laughing. 

I looked up, quickly ; being curious to know. 

" Only Brooks of Sheffield," said Mr. Murdstone. 

I was quite relieved to find it was only Brooks of Sheffield ; for, at 
first, I really thought it was I. 

There seemed to be something very comical in the reputation of 
Mr. Brooks of Sheffield, for both the gentlemen laughed heartily when he 
was mentioned, and Mr. Murdstone was a good deal amused also. After 
some laughing, the gentleman whom he had called Quinion, said : 

" And what is the opinion of Brooks of Sheffield, in reference to the 
projected business ? " 

" Why, I don't know that Brooks understands much about it at pre- 
sent," replied Mr. Murdstone ; " but he is not generally favourable, I 
believe." 

There was more laughter at this, and Mr. Quinion said he would ring 
the bell for some sherry in which to drink to Brooks. This he did; 
and when the wine came, he made me have a little, with a biscuit, and, 
before I drank it, stand up and say " Confusion to Brooks of Sheffield ! " 

c 



18 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

The toast was received with great applause, and such hearty laughter that 
it made me laugh too ; at which they laughed the more. In short, we 
quite enjoyed ourselves. 

We walked about on the cliff after that, and sat on the grass, and 
looked at things through a telescope — I could make out nothing myself 
when it was put to my eye, but I pretended I could — and then we came 
back to the hotel to an early dinner. All the time we were out, the two 
gentlemen smoked incessantly — which, I thought, if I might judge from the 
smell of their rough coats, they must have been doing, ever since the coatshad 
first come home from the tailor's. I must not forget that we went on 
board the yacht, where they all three descended into the cabin, and were busy 
with some papers. I saw them quite hard at work, when I looked down 
through the open skylight. They left me, during this time, with a very nice 
man with a very large head of red hair and a very small shiny hat upon it, 
who had got a cross-barred shirt or waistcoat on, with " Skylark " in capital 
letters across the chest. I thought it was his name ; and that as he lived 
on board ship and hadn't a street-door to put his name on, he put it 
there instead ; but when I called him Mr. Skylark, he said it meant the 
vessel. 

I observed all day that Mr. Murdstone was graver and steadier than the 
two gentlemen. They were very gay and careless. They joked freely with 
one another, but seldom with him. It appeared to me that he was more 
clever and cold than they were, and that they regarded him with some- 
thing of my own feeling. I remarked that once or twice when Mr. 
Quinion was talking, he looked at Mr. Murdstone sideways, as if to make 
sure of his not being displeased ; and that once when Mr. Passnidge (the 
other gentleman) was in lngh spirits, he trod upon his foot, and gave him 
a secret caution with his eyes, to observe Mr. Murdstone, who was sitting- 
stern and silent. Nor do I recollect that Mr. Murdstone laughed at all 
that day, except at the Sheffield joke — and that, by the by, was his 
own. 

We went home early in the evening. It was a very fine evening, and 
my mother and he had another stroll by the sweet-briar, while I was sent 
in to get my tea. When he was gone, my mother asked me all about the 
day I had had, and what they had said and done. I mentioned what they 
had said about her, and she laughed, and told me they were impudent 
fellows who talked nonsense — but I knew it pleased her. I knew it quite 
as well as I know it now. I took the opportunity of asking if she was 
at all acquainted with Mr. Brooks of Sheffield, but she answered 
No, only she supposed he must be a manufacturer in the knife and fork 
way. 

Can I say of her face — altered as I have reason to remember it, 
perished as I know it is — that it is gone, when here it comes before me at 
this instant, as distinct as any face that I may choose to look on in a 
crowded street ? Can I say of her innocent and girlish beauty, that it 
faded, and was no more, when its breath falls on my cheek now, as it fell 
that night ? Can I say she ever changed, when my remembrance brings 
her back to life, thus only ; and, truer to its loving youth than I have been, 
or man ever is, still holds fast what it cherished then ? 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 19 

I write of her just as she was when I had gone to bed after this talk, 
and she came to bid me good night. She kneeled down playfully by the 
side of the bed, and laying her chin upon her hands, and laughing, 
said : 

" What was it they said, Davy ? Tell me again. I can't believe it." 

" ' Bewitching ' " I began. 

My mother put her hands upon her lips to stop me. 

"It was never bewitching," she said, laughing. " It never could have 
been bewitching, Davy. Now I know it wasn't !" 

"Yes it was. 'Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield,' " I repeated stoutly. 
"And 'pretty.'" 

" No no, it was never pretty. Not pretty," interposed my mother, 
laying her fingers on my lips again. 

" Yes it was. ' Pretty little widow.' " 

" What foolish, impudent creatures ! " cried my mother, laughing and 
covering her face. " What ridiculous men ! An't they? Davy dear " 

" Well, Ma." 

" Don't tell Peggotty ; she might be angry with them. I am dreadfully 
angry with them myself ; but I would rather Peggotty didn't know." 

I promised, of course ; and we kissed one another over and over again, 
and I soon fell fast asleep. 

It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if it were the next day when 
Peggotty broached the striking and adventurous proposition I am about to 
mention ; but it was probably about two months afterwards. 

We were sitting as before, one evening (when my mother was out 
as before), in company with the stocking and the yard measure, and the 
bit of wax, and the box with Saint Paul's on the lid, and the crocodile 
book, when Peggotty, after looking at me several times, and opening 
her mouth as if she were going to speak, without doing it — which I 
thought was merely gaping, or I should have been rather alarmed — said 
coaxingly : 

" Master Davy, how should you like to go along with me and spend a 
fortnight at my brother's at Yarmouth ? Wouldn't that be a treat ? " 

" Is your brother an agreeable man, Peggotty? " I enquired, pro- 
visionally. 

" Oh what an agreeable man he is ! " cried Peggotty, holding up her 
hands. " Then there 's the sea ; and the boats and ships ; and the 
fishermen ; and the beach ; and Am to play with — " 

Peggotty meant her nephew Ham, mentioned in my first chapter ;jfcut 
she spoke of him as a morsel of English Grammar. 

I was flushed by her summary of delights, and replied that it would 
indeed be a treat, but what would my mother say? 

" Why then I'll as good as bet a guinea," said Peggotty, intent upon my 
face, "that she '11 let us go. I '11 ask her, if you like, as soon as ever she 
comes home. There now ! " 

" But what 's she to do while we 're away ? " said I, putting my small 
elbows on the table to argue the point. " She can 't live by herself." 

If Peggotty were looking for a hole, all of a sudden, in the heel of that 
stocking, it must have been a very little one indeed, and not worth 
darning. c 2 



20 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" I say ! Peggotty ! She can 't live by herself, you know." 

" Oh bless you ! " said Peggotty, looking at me again at last. "Don 't 
you know? She's going to stay for a fortnight with Mrs. Grayper. 
Mrs. Grayper 's going to have a lot of company." 

Oh ! If that was it, I was quite ready to go. I waited, in the utmost 
impatience, until my mother came home from Mrs. Grayper's (for it was 
that identical neighbour), to ascertain if we could get leave to carry out 
this great idea. Without being nearly so much surprised as I had Expected, 
my mother entered into it readily ; and it was all arranged that night, and 
my board and lodging during the visit were to be paid for. 

The day soon came for our going. It was such an early day that it 
came soon, even to me, who was in a fever of expectation, and half afraid 
that an earthquake or a fiery mountain, or some other great convulsion of 
nature, might interpose to stop the expedition. We were to go in a 
carrier's cart, which departed in the morning after breakfast. I would 
have given any money to have been allowed to wrap myself up over-night, 
and sleep in my hat and boots. 

It touches me nearly now, although I tell it lightly, to recollect how 
eager I was to leave my happy home ; to think how little I suspected what 
I did leave for ever. 

I am glad to recollect that when the carrier's cart was at the gate, and 
my mother stood there kissing me, a grateful fondness for her and for the 
old place I had never turned my back upon before, made me cry. I am 
glad to know that my mother cried too, and that I felt her heart beat 
against mine. 

I am glad to recollect that when the carrier began to move, my mother 
ran out at the gate, and called to him to stop, that she might kiss me 
once more. I am glad to dwell upon the earnestness and love with which 
she lifted up her face to mine, and did so. 

As we left her standing in the road, Mr. Murdstone came up to where 
she was, and seemed to expostulate with her for being so moved. I was 
looking back round the awning of the cart, and wondered what business it 
was of his. Peggotty, who was also looking back on the other side, 
seemed anything but satisfied ; as the face she brought back into the cart 
denoted. 

I sat looking at Peggotty for some time, in a reverie on this supposi- 
titious case : whether, if she were employed to lose me like the boy in 
the fairy tale, I should be able to track my way home again by the buttons 
she would shed. 



OF DAVID COPPERITELD. 21 



CHAPTEE III. 

* I HAVE A CHANGE. 

The carrier's horse was the laziest horse in the world, I should hope, 
and shuffled along, with his head down, as if he liked to keep the people 
waiting to whom the packages were directed. I fancied, indeed, that he 
sometimes chuckled audibly over this reflection, but the carrier said he 
was only troubled with a cough. 

The carrier had a way of keeping his head down, like his horse, and of 
drooping sleepily forward as he drove, with one of his arms on each of his 
knees. I say " drove," but it struck me that the cart would have gone 
to Yarmouth quite as well without him, for the horse did all that ; and as 
to conversation, he had no idea of it but whistling. 

Peggotty had a basket of refreshments on her knee, which would 
have lasted us out handsomely, if we had been going to London by the 
same conveyance. We ate a good deal, and slept a good deal. Peggotty 
always went to sleep with her chin upon the handle of the basket, her 
hold of which never relaxed ; and I could not have believed unless I had 
heard her do it, that one defenceless woman could have snored so 
much. 

We made so many deviations up and down lanes, and were such a 
long time delivering a bedstead at a public-house, and calling at other 
places, that I was quite tired, and very glad, when we saw Yarmouth. 
It looked rather spongey and soppy, I thought, as I carried my eye 
over the great dull waste that lay across the river ; and I could not 
help wondering, if the world were really as round as my geography- 
book said, how any part of it came to be so flat. But I reflected that 
Yarmouth might be situated at one of the poles ; which would account 
for it. 

As we drew a little nearer, and saw the whole adjacent prospect lying 
a straight low line under the sky, I hinted to Peggotty that a mound 
or so might have improved it ; and also that if the land had been a little 
more separated from the sea, and the town and the tide had not been 
quite so much mixed up, like toast and water, it would have been nicer. 
But Peggotty said, with greater emphasis than usual, that we must take 
things as we found them, and that, for her part, she was proud to call 
herself a Yarmouth Bloater. 

When we got into the street (which was strange enough to me), and 
smelt the fish, and pitch, and oakum, and tar, and saw the sailors 
walking about, and the carts jingling up and down over the stones, I felt 
that I had done so busy a place an injustice ; and said as much to Peg- 
gotty, who heard my expressions of delight with great complacency, and 
told me it was well known (I suppose to those who had the good fortune 



Z6 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

to be born Bloaters) that Yarmouth was, upon the whole, the finest place 
in the universe. 

" Here 's my Am ! " screamed Peggotty, " growed out of knowledge !" 

He was waiting for us, in fact, at the public-house ; and asked me 
how I found myself, like an old acquaintance. I did not feel, at first, 
that I knew him as well as he knew me, because he had never 
come to our house since the night I was born, and naturally he had the 
advantage of me. But our intimacy was much advanced by his taking 
me on his back to carry me home. He was, now, a huge, strong fellow 
of six feet high, broad in proportion, and round-shouldered; but with 
a simpering boy's face and curly light air that gave him quite a sheepish 
look. He was dressed in a canvass jacket, and a pair of such very 
stiff trousers that they would have stood quite as well alone, without 
any legs in them. And you couldn't so properly have said he wore a 
hat, as that he was covered in a-top, like an old building, with something- 
pitchy. 

Ham carrying me on his back and a small box of ours under his 
arm, and Peggotty carrying another small box of ours, we turned down 
lanes bestrewn with bits of chips and little hillocks of sand, and went 
past gas-works, rope-walks, boat-builders' yards, ship-wrights' yards, 
ship-breakers' yards, caulkers' yards, riggers' lofts, smiths' forges, and a 
great litter of such places, until we came out upon the dull waste I 
had already seen at a distance; when Ham said, 

" Yon's our house, Mas'r Davy ! " 

I looked in all directions, as far as I could stare over the wilderness, 
and away at the sea, and away at the river, but no house could / make 
out. There was a black barge, or some other kind of superannuated boat, 
not far off, high and dry on the ground, with an iron funnel sticking out 
of it for a chimney and smoking very cosily ; but nothing else in the way 
of a habitation that was visible to me. 

" That 's not it ?" said I. " That ship-looking thing ?" 

" That 's it, Mas'r Davy," returned Ham. 

If it had been Aladdin's palace, roc's egg and all, I suppose I could 
not have been more charmed with the romantic idea of living in it. 
There was a delightful door cut in the side, and it was roofed in, and 
there were little windows in it ; but the wonderful charm of it was, that 
it was a real boat which had no doubt been upon the water hundreds 
of times, and which had never been intended to be lived in, on dry 
land. That was the captivation of it to me. If it had ever been 
meant to be lived in, I might have thought it small, or inconvenient, or 
lonely ; but never having been designed for any such use, it became a 
perfect abode. 

It was beautifully clean inside, and as tidy as possible. There was a 
table, and a Dutch clock, and a chest of drawers, and on the chest of 
drawers there was a tea-tray with a painting on it of a lady with a parasol, 
taking a walk with a military-looking child who was trundling a hoop. 
The tray was kept from tumbling down, by a bible ; and the tray, if it 
had tumbled down, would have smashed a quantity of cups and saucers 
and a teapot that were grouped around the book. On the walls 




1 






3 * 



' 



■^HMTH 



OF DAVID COPPEHFIELD. 23 

there were some common colored pictures, framed and glazed, of scripture 
subjects; such as I have never seen since in the hands of pedlars, without 
seeing the whole interior of Peggotty's brother's house again, at one view. 
Abraham in red going to sacrifice Isaac in blue, and Daniel in yellow cast 
into a den of green lions, were the most prominent of these. Over the 
little mantel-shelf, was a picture of the Sarah Jane lugger, built at 
Sunderland, with a real little wooden stern stuck on to it ; a work of art, 
combining composition with carpentery, which I considered to be one of 
the most enviable possessions that the world could afford. There were 
some hooks in the beams of the ceiling, the use of which I did not divine 
then ; and some lockers and boxes and conveniences of that sort, which 
served for seats and eked out the chairs. 

All this, I saw in the first glance after I crossed the threshold — child- 
like, according to my theory — and then Peggotty opened a little door and 
showed me my bedroom. It was the completest and most desirable 
bedroom ever seen — in the stern of the vessel ; with a little window, where 
the rudder used to go through; a little looking-glass, just the right 
height for me, nailed against the wall, and framed with oyster-shells ; a 
little bed, which there was just room enough to get into ; and a nosegay 
of seaweed in a blue mug on the table. The walls were whitewashed as 
white as milk, and the patchwork counterpane made my eyes quite ache 
with its brightness. One thing I particularly noticed in this delightful 
house, was the smell of fish ; which was so searching, that when I took 
out my pocket-handkerchief to wipe my nose, I found it smelt exactly as 
if it had wrapped up a lobster. On my imparting this discovery 
in confidence to Peggotty, she informed me that her brother dealt in 
lobsters, crabs, and crawfish ; and I afterwards found that a heap of these 
creatures, in a state of wonderful conglomeration with one another, 
and never leaving off pinching whatever they laid hold of, were usually 
to be found in a little wooden outhouse where the pots and kettles were 
kept. 

We were welcomed by a very civil woman in a white apron, whom 
I had seen curtseying at the door when I was on Ham's back, 
about a quarter of a mile off. Likewise by a most beautiful little 
girl (or I thought her so) with a necklace of blue beads on, who 
wouldn't let me kiss her when I offered to, but ran away and hid herself. 
By and by, when we had dined in a sumptuous manner off boiled dabs, 
melted butter, and potatoes, with a chop for me, a hairy man with 
a very good-natured face came home. As he called Peggotty "Lass," 
and gave her a hearty smack on the cheek, I had no doubt, from the 
general propriety of her conduct, that he was her brother ; and so he 
turned out — being presently introduced to me as Mr. Peggotty, the 
master of the house. 

" Glad to see you, sir," said Mr. Peggotty. "You'll find us rough, 
sir, but you'll find us ready." 

I thanked him, and replied that I was sure I should be happy in such 
a delightful place. 

"How's your Ma, sir," said Mr. Peggotty. "Did you leave her 
pretty jolly ? " 



24 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

I gave Mr. Peggotty to understand that she was as jolly as I could 
wish, and that she desired her compliments — which was a polite fiction 
on my part. 

" I 'm much obleeged to her, I'm sure," said Mi*. Peggotty. "Well 
sir, if you can make out here, far a fortnut, 'long wi' her," nodding at 
his sister, " and Ham, and little Em'ly, we shall be proud of your 
company." 

Having done the honors of his house in this hospitable manner, 
Mr. Peggotty went out to wash himself in a kettleful of hot water, remarking 
that " cold would never get Ms muck off." He soon returned, greatly 
improved in appearance ; but so rubicund, that I couldn't help thinking 
his face had this in common with the lobsters, crabs, and crawfish, — that 
it went into the hot water very black, and came out very red. 

After tea, when the door was shut and all was made snug (the nights 
being cold and misty now), it seemed to me the most delicious retreat 
that the imagination of man could conceive. To hear the wind getting 
up out at sea, to know that the fog was creeping over the desolate flat 
outside, and to look at the fire, and think that there was no house near 
but this one, and this one a boat, was like enchantment. Little Em'ly 
had overcome her shyness, and was sitting by my side upon the lowest 
and least of the lockers, which was just large enough for us two, and just 
fitted into the chimney corner. Mrs. Peggotty with the white apron, was 
knitting on the opposite side of the fire. Peggotty at her needle-work 
was as much at home with Saint Paul's and the bit of wax-candle, as if 
they had never known any other roof. Ham, who had been giving me 
my first lesson in all-fours, was trying to recollect a scheme of telling 
fortunes with the dirty cards, and was printing off fishy impressions of his 
thumb on all the cards he turned. Mr. Peggotty was smoking his pipe. 
I felt it was a time for conversation and confidence. 

" Mr. Peggotty ! " says I. 

" Sir," says he. 

" Did you give your son the name of Ham, because you lived in a sort 
of ark ? " 

Mr. Peggotty seemed to think it a deep idea, but answered : 

" No, sir. I never giv him no name." 

" Who gave him that name, then ? " said I, putting question number 
two of the catechism to Mr. Peggotty. 

"Why, sir, his father giv it him," said Mr. Peggotty. 

" I thought you were his father ! " 

" My brother Joe was his father," said Mr. Peggotty. 

" Dead, Mr. Peggotty? " I hinted, after a respectful pause. 

" Drowndead," said Mr. Peggotty. 

I was very much surprised that Mr. Peggotty was not Ham's father, 
and began to wonder whether I was mistaken about his relationship to 
anybody else there. I was so curious to know, that I made up my mind 
to have it out with Mr. Peggotty. 

" Little Em'ly," I said, glancing at her. " She is your daughter, isn 't 
she, Mr. Peggotty?" 

" No, sir. My brother in law, Tom, was her father," 



OF DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 25 

I couldn 't help it. " — Dead, Mr. Peggotty ? " I hinted, after another 
respectful silence. 

" Drowndead," said Mr. Peggotty. 

I felt the difficulty of resuming the subject, but had not got to the 
bottom of it yet, and must get to the bottom somehow. So I said : 

" Havn 't you any children, Mr. Peggotty ? " 

" No, master," he answered with a short laugh. "I'ma bacheldore." 

" A bachelor ! " I said, astonished. " Why, who 's that, Mr. Peg- 
gotty ? " Pointing to the person in the apron who was knitting. 

* That 's Missis Gummidge," said Mr. Peggotty. 

" Gummidge, Mr. Peggotty ?" 

But at this point Peggotty — I mean my own peculiar Peggotty — 
made such impressive motions to me not to ask any more questions, 
that I could only sit and look at all the silent company, until it 
was time to go to bed. Then, in the privacy of my own little cabin, 
she informed me that Ham and Em'ly were an orphan nephew and 
niece, whom my host had at different times adopted in their child- 
hood, when they were left destitute ; and that Mrs. Gummidge was 
the widow of his partner in a boat, who had died very poor. He 
was but a poor man himself, said Peggotty, but as good as gold 
and as true as steel — those were her similies. The only subject, she 
informed me, on which he ever showed a violent temper or swore an 
oath, was this generosity of his ; and if it were ever referred to, by any 
one of them, he struck the table a heavy blow with his right hand (had 
split it on one such occasion), and swore a dreadful oath that he would 
be ' Gormed ' if he didn't cut and run for good, if it was ever men- 
tioned again. It appeared, in answer to my inquiries, that nobody 
had the least idea of the etymology of this terrible verb passive to be 
gormed ; but that they all regarded it as constituting a most solemn 
imprecation. 

I was very sensible of my entertainer's goodness, and listened to the 
women's going to bed in another little crib like mine at the opposite end 
of the boat, and to him and Ham hanging up two hammocks for themselves 
on the hooks I had noticed in the roof, in a very luxurious state of 
mind, enhanced by my being sleepy. As slumber gradually stole upon 
me, I heard the wind howling out at sea and coming on across the flat so 
fiercely, that I had a lazy apprehension of the great deep rising in the 
night. But I bethought myself that I was in a boat, after all ; and that a 
man like Mr. Peggotty was not a bad person to have on board if anything 
did happen. 

Nothing happened, however, worse than morning. Almost as soon as it 
shone upon the oyster-shell frame of my mirror I was out of bed, and out 
with little Em'ly, picking up stones upon the beach. 

"You're quite a sailor, I suppose?" I said to Em'ly. I don't know 
that I supposed any thing of the kind, but I felt it an act of gallantry to 
say something ; and a shining sail close to us made such a pretty little 
image of itself, at the moment, in her bright eye, that it came into my head 
to say this. 

" No," replied Em'ly, shaking her head, " I'm afraid of the sea." 



26 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

"Afraid!" I said, with a becoming air of boldness, and looking very 
big at the mighty ocean. " I a'nt ! " 

" Ah ! but it 's cruel," said Em'ly. " I have seen it very cruel to some 
of our men. I have seen it tear a boat as big as our house, all to pieces." 

" I hope it was'nt the boat that " 

" That father was drownded in ?" said Em'ly. " No. Not that one, I 
never see that boat." 

"Nor him?" I asked her. 

Little Em'ly shook her head. " Not to remember ! " 

Here was a coincidence ! I immediately went into an explanation how 
I had never seen my own father ; and how my mother and I had always 
lived by ourselves in the happiest state imaginable, and lived so then, and 
always meant to live so ; and how my father's grave was in the churchyard 
near our house, and shaded by a tree, beneath the boughs of which I 
had walked and heard the birds sing many a pleasant morning. But 
there were some differences between Em'ly's orphanhood and mine, it ap- 
peared. She had lost her mother before her father ; and where her father's 
grave was no one knew, except that it was somewhere in the depths of the 
sea. 

" Besides," said Em'ly, as she looked about for shells and pebbles, 
" your father was a gentleman and your mother is a lady ; and my father 
was a fisherman and my mother was a fisherman's daughter, and my uncle 
Dan is a fisherman. 

" Dan is Mr. Peggotty, is he ? " said I. 

"Uncle Dan — yonder," answered Em'ly, nodding at the boat-house. 

" Yes. I mean him. He must be very good, I should think ? " 

" Good? " said Em'ly. " If I was ever to be a lady, I 'd give him a 
sky-blue coat with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a red velvet 
waistcoat, a cocked hat, a large gold watch,' a silver pipe, and a box of 
money." 

I said I had no doubt that Mr. Peggotty well deserved these treasures. 
I must acknowledge that I felt it difficult to picture him quite at his ease 
in the raiment proposed for him by his grateful little niece, and that I 
was particularly doubtful of the policy of the cocked hat ; but I kept these 
sentiments to myself. 

Little Em'ly had stopped and looked up at the sky in her enumeration 
of these articles, as if they were a glorious vision. We went on again, 
picking up shells and pebbles. 

" You would like to be a lady ? " I said. 

Emily looked at me, and laughed and nodded " yes." 

" I should like it very much. We would all be gentlefolks together, 
then. Me, and uncle, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge. We wouldn't 
mind then, when there come stormy weather. — Not for our own sakes, I 
mean. We would for the poor fishermen's, to be sure, and we 'd help 'em 
with money when they come to any hurt." 

This seemed to me to be a very satisfactory and therefore not at all 
improbable picture. I expressed my pleasure in the contemplation of it, 
and little Em'ly was emboldened to say, shyly, 

" Don't you think you are afraid of the sea, now ? " 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 27 

It was quiet enough to reassure me, but I have no doubt if I had seen 
a moderately large wave come tumbling in, I should have taken to my 
heels, with an awful recollection of her drowned relations. However, I 
said " No," and I added, " You don't seem to be, either, though you say 
you are ;" — for she was walking much too near the brink of a sort of 
old jetty or wooden causeway we had strolled upon, and I was afraid of 
her falling over. 

"I'm not afraid in this way," said little Em'ly. "But I wake 
when it blows, and tremble to think of uncle Dan and Ham, and 
believe I hear 'em crying out for help. That 's why I should like so 
much to be a lady. But I 'm not afraid in this way. Not a bit. Look 
here ! " 

She started from my side, and ran along a jagged timber which pro- 
truded from the place we stood upon, and overhung the deep water at 
some height, without the least defence. The incident is so impressed on 
my remembrance, that if I were a draughtsman I could draw its form 
here, I daresay, accurately as it was that day, and little Em'ly springing 
forward to her destruction (as it appeared to me), with a look that I have 
never forgotten, directed far out to sea. 

The light, bold, fluttering little figure turned and came back safe to me, 
and I soon laughed at my fears, and at the cry I had uttered ; fruitlessly 
in any case, for there was no one near. But there have been times since, 
in my manhood, many times there have been, when I have thought, Is it 
possible, among the possibilities of hidden things, that in the sudden 
rashness of the child and her wild look so far off, there was any merciful 
attraction of her into danger, any tempting her towards him permitted 
on the part of her dead father, that her life might have a chance of 
ending that day. There has been a time since when I have wondered 
whether, if the life before her could have been revealed to me at a glance, 
and so revealed as that a child could fully comprehend it, and if her pre- 
servation could have depended on a motion of my hand, I ought to have 
held it up to save her. There has been a time since — I do not say 
it lasted long, but it has been — when I have asked myself the question, 
would it have been better for little Em'ly to have had the waters close 
above her head that morning in my sight ; and when I have answered 
Yes, it would have been. 

This may be premature. I have set it down too soon, perhaps. But 
let it stand. 

We strolled a long way, and loaded ourselves with things that we 
thought curious, and put some stranded star-fish carefully back into 
the water — I hardly know enough of the race at this moment to be 
quite certain whether they had reason to feel obliged to us for doing 
so, or the reverse — and then made our way home to Mr. Peggotty's 
dwelling. We stopped under the lee of the lobster-outhouse to 
exchange an innocent kiss, and went in to breakfast glowing with health 
and pleasure. 

" Like two young mavishes," Mr. Peggotty said. I knew this meant, 
in our local dialect, like two young thrushes, and received it as a com- 
pliment. 



28 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Of course I was in love with little Em'iy. I am sure I loved that baby 
quite as truly, quite as tenderly, with greater purity, and more disinterest- 
edness, than can enter into the best love of a later time of life, high and 
ennobling as it is. I am sure my fancy raised up something round that 
blue-eyed mite of a child, which etherealised, and made a very angel of 
her. If, any sunny forenoon, she had spread a little pair of wings and 
flown away before my eyes, I don't think I should have regarded it as 
much more than I had had reason to expect. 

We used to walk about that dim old flat at Yarmouth in a loviDg 
manner, hours and hours. The days sported by us, as if Time had not 
grown up himself yet, but were a child too, and always at play. I told 
Em'ly I adored her, and that unless she confessed she adored me I should 
be reduced to the necessity of killing myself with a sword. She said she 
did, and I have no doubt she did. 

As to any sense of inequality, or youthfulness, or other difficulty in our 
way, little Em'ly and I had no such trouble, because we had no future. 
We made no more provision for growing older, than we did for growing 
younger. We were the admiration of Mrs. Gummidge and Peggotty, who 
used to whisper of an evening when we sat, lovingly, on our little locker 
side by side, " Lor ! wasn 't it beautiful ! " Mr. Peggotty smiled at us 
from behind his pipe, and Ham grinned all the evening and did nothing- 
else. They had something of the sort of pleasure in us, I suppose, 
that they might have had in a pretty toy, or a pocket model of the 
Colosseum. 

I soon found out that Mrs. Gummidge did not always make herself 
so agreeable as she might have been expected to do, under the cir- 
cumstances of her residence with Mr. Peggotty. Mrs. Gummidge's was 
rather a fretful disposition, and she whimpered more sometimes than 
was comfortable for other parties in so small an establishment. I was 
very sorry for her ; but there were moments when it would have been 
more agreeable, I thought, if Mrs. Gummidge had had a convenient 
apartment of her own to retire to, and had stopped there until her spirits 
revived. 

Mi*. Peggotty went occasionally to a public house called The Willing- 
Mind. I discovered this, by his being out on the second or third evening 
of our visit, and by Mrs. Gummidge's looking up at the dutch clock, 
between eight and nine, and saying he was there, and that, what was 
more, she had known in the morning he would go there. 

Mrs. Gummidge had. been in a low state all day, and had burst into 
tears in the forenoon, when the fire smoked. "lama lone lorn creetur'," 
were Mrs. Gummidge's words, when that unpleasant occurrence took 
place, " and every think goes contrairy with me." 

" Oh, it '11 soon leave off," said Peggotty— I again mean our Peggotty 
— " and besides, you know, it 's not more disagreeable to you than to us." 

" I feel it more," said Mrs. Gummidge. 

It was a very cold day, with cutting blasts of wind. Mrs. Gummidge's 
peculiar corner of the fireside seemed to me to be the warmest and 
snuggest in the place, as her chair was certainly the easiest, but it didn't 
suit her that day at all. She was constantly complaining of the cold, and 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 29 

of its occasioning a visitation in her back which she called " the creeps." 
At last she shed tears on that subject, and said again that she was " a lone 
lorn creetur' and every think went contrairy with her." 

" It is certainly very cold," said Peggotty. "Everybody must feel it so." 

" I feel it more than other people," said Mrs. Gummidge. 

So at dinner ; when Mrs. Gummidge was always helped immediately 
after me, to whom the preference was given as a visitor of distinction. 
The fish were small and bony, and the potatoes were a little burnt. We 
all acknowledged that we felt this something of a disappointment ; but 
Mrs. Gummidge said she felt it more than we did, and shed tears again, 
and made that former declaration with great bitterness. 

Accordingly, when Mr. Peggotty came home about nine o'clock, this 
unfortunate Mrs. Gummidge was knitting in her corner in a very wretched 
and miserable condition. Peggotty had beeu working cheerfully. Ham 
had been patching up a great pair of water-boots ; and I, with little 
Em'ly by my side, had been reading to them. Mrs. Gummidge had never 
made any other remark than a forlorn sigh, and had never raised her eyes 
since tea. 

" Well, Mates," said Mr. Peggotty, taking his seat, " and how are you ?" 

We all said something, or looked something, to welcome him, except 
Mrs. Gummidge, who only shook her head over her knitting. 

" What 's amiss," said Mr. Peggotty, with a clap of his hands. 
" Cheer up, old Mawther ! " (Mr. Peggotty meant old girl.) 

Mrs. Gummidge did not appear to be able to cheer up. She took out 
an old black silk handkerchief and wiped her eyes ; but instead of putting- 
it in her pocket, kept it out, and wiped them again, and still kept it out, 
ready for use. 

" What's amiss, dame !" said Mr. Peggotty. 

"Nothing," returned Mrs. Gummidge. "You've come from The 
Willing Mind, Dan'l?" 

" Why yes, I 've took a short spell at The Willing Mind to-night," said 
Mr. Peggotty. 

" I'm sorry I should drive you there," said Mrs. Gummidge. 

" Drive ! I don't want no driving," returned Mr. Peggotty with an 
honest laugh. " I only go too ready." 

" Very ready," said Mrs. Gummidge, shaking her head, and wiping her 
eyes. " Yes, yes, very ready. I am sorry it should be along of me that 
you're so ready." 

" Along o' you? It an't along o' you ! " said Mr. Peggotty. " Don't 
ye believe a bit on it." 

" Yes, yes, it is," cried Mrs. Gummidge. " I know what I am. I 
know that I 'm a lone lorn creetur, and not only that everythink 
goes contrairy with me, but that I go contrairy with everybody. Yes, 
yes. I feel more than other people do, and I show it more. It's my 
misfortun'." 

I really couldn't help thinking, as I sat taking in all this, that the 
misfortune extended to some other members of that family besides 
Mrs. Gummidge. But Mr. Peggotty made no such retort, only answering 
■■ it ii another entreaty to Mrs. Gummidge to cheer up. 



30 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" I an't wliat I could wish myself to be," said Mrs. Gummidge. " I 
am far from it. I know what I am. My troubles has made me contrairy. 
I feel my troubles, and they make me contrairy. I wish I did'nt feel 'em, 
but I do. I wish I could be hardened to 'em, but I an't. I make the 
house uncomfortable. I don't wonder at it. I 've made your sister so 
all day, and Master Davy." 

Here I was suddenly melted, and roared out "No, you have'nt, Mrs 
Gummidge," in great mental distress. 

" It's far from right that I should do it," said Mrs. Gummidge. " It 
an't a fit return. I had better go into the house and die. I am a lone 
lorn creetur, and had much better not make myself contrairy here. If 
thinks must go contrairy with me, and I must go contrairy myself, let me 
go contrairy in my parish. Dan'l, I'd better go into the house, and. 
die and be a riddance !" 

Mrs. Gummidge retired with these words, and betook herself to bed. 
When she was gone, Mr. Peggotty, who had not exhibited a trace of any 
feeling but the profoundest sympathy, looked round upon us, and nodding 
his head with a lively expression of that sentiment still animating his face, 
said in a whisper : 

" She's been thinking of the old'un ! " 

I did not quite understand what old one Mrs. Gummidge was 
supposed to have fixed her mind upon, until Peggotty, on seeing me 
to bed, explained that it was the late Mr. Gummidge ; and that 
her brother always took that for a received truth on such occasions, 
and that it always had a moving effect upon him. Some time after he 
was in his hammock that night, I heard him myself repeat to Ham, 
" Poor thing ! She 's been thinking of the old 'un ! " And whenever 
Mrs. Gummidge was overcome in a similar manner during the remainder 
of our stay (which happened some few times), he always said the same 
thing in extenuation of the circumstance, and always with the tenderest 
commiseration. 

So the fortnight slipped away, varied by nothing but the variation of 
the tide, which altered Mi*. Peggotty's times of going out and coming in, 
and altered Ham's engagements also. When the latter was unemployed, 
he sometimes walked with us to show us the boats and ships, and once or 
twice he took us for a row. I don 't know why one slight set of impres- 
sions should be more particularly associated with a place than another, 
though I believe this obtains with most people, in reference especially to 
the associations of their childhood. I never hear the name, or read the 
name, of Yarmouth, but I am reminded of a certain Sunday morning on 
the beach, the bells ringing for church, little Em'ly leaning on my shoulder, 
Ham lazily dropping stones into the water, and the sun, away at sea, 
just breaking through the heavy mist, and showing us the ships, like 
their own shadows. 

At last the day came for going home. I bore up against the separation 
from Mr. Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge, but my agony of mind at leaving 
little Em'ly was piercing. We went arm-in-arm to the public-house 
where the carrier put up, and I promised, on the road, to write to her. 
(I redeemed that promise afterwards, in characters larger than those in 



OF DAYID COPPERFIELD. 31 

which apartments are usually announced in manuscript, as being to let). 
We were greatly overcome at parting ; and if ever, in my life, I have had a 
void made in my heart, I had one made that day. 

Now, all the time I had been on my visit, I had been ungrateful to my 
home again, and had thought little or nothing about it. But I was no 
sooner turned towards it, than my reproachful young conscience seemed 
to point that way with a steady finger; and I felt, all the more for the 
sinking of my spirits, that it was my nest, and that my mother was my 
comforter and friend. 

This gained upon me as we went along ; so that the nearer we drew, 
and the more familiar the objects became that we passed, the more 
excited I was to get there, and to run into her arms. But Peggotty, 
instead of sharing in these transports, tried to check them (though very 
kindly), and looked confused and out of sorts. 

Blunderstone Rookery would come, however, in spite of her, when the 
carrier's horse pleased — and did. How well I recollect it, on a cold grey 
afternoon, with a dull sky, threatening rain ! 

The door opened, and I looked, half laughing and half crying in my 
pleasant agitation, for my mother. It was not she, but a strange 
servant. 

" Why, Peggotty !" I said, ruefully, " isn't she come home !" 

" Yes, yes, Master Davy," said Peggotty. " She 's come home. Wait 
a bit, Master Davy, and I '11 — I '11 tell you something." 

Between her agitation, and her natural awkwardness in getting out of 
the cart, Peggotty was making a most extraordinary festoon of herself, but I 
felt too blank and strange to tell her so. When she had got down, she 
took me by the hand ; led me, wondering, into the kitchen ; and shut the 
door. 

"Peggotty ! " said I, quite frightened. " What 's the matter? " 

"Nothing's the matter, bless you, Master Davy dear! " she answered, 
assuming an air of sprightliness. 

" Something 's the matter, I 'm sure. Where 's mama ? " 

" Where 's mama, Master Davy ? " repeated Peggotty. 

" Yes. Why hasn 't she come out to the gate, and what have we come 
in here for ? Oh, Peggotty ! " My eyes were full, and I felt as if I were 
going to tumble down. 

" Bless the precious boy ! " cried Peggotty, taking hold of me. " What 
is it ? Speak, my pet ! " 

" Not dead, too ! Oh, she 's not dead, Peggotty ? " 

Peggotty cried out No ! with an astonishing volume of voice ; and then 
sat down, and began to pant, and said I had given her a turn. 

I gave her a hug to take away the turn, or to give her another turn in 
the right direction, and then stood before her, looking at her in anxious 
inquiry. 

" You see, dear, I should have told you before now," said Peggotty, 
" but I hadn 't an opportunity. I ought to have made it, perhaps, but I 
couldn't azackly " — that was always the substitute for exactly, in Peggotty's 
militia of words — " bring my mind to it." 

" Go on, Peggotty," said I, more frightened than before. 



32 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Master Davy," said Peggotty, untying her bonnet with a shaking 
hand, and speaking in a breathless sort of way. " What do you think? 
You have got aPa!" 

I trembled, and turned white. Something — I don't know what, or 
how — connected with the grave in the churchyard, and the raising of the 
dead, seemed to strike me like an unwholesome wind. 

" A new one," said Peggotty. 

" Anew one?" I repeated. 

Peggotty gave a gasp, as if she were swallowing something that was 
very hard, and, putting out her hand, said : 

" Come and see him." 

" I don't want to see him." 

— " And your mamma," said Peggotty. 

I ceased to draw back, and we went straight to the best parlor, where 
she left me. On one side of the fire, sat my mother; on the other, 
Mr. Murdstone. My mother dropped her work, and arose hurriedly, but 
timidly I thought. 

" Now, Clara my dear," said Mr. Murdstone. " Recollect ! controul 
yourself, always controul yourself ! Davy boy, how do you do ? " 

I gave him my hand. After a moment of suspense, I went and kissed 
my mother : she kissed me, patted me gently on the shoulder, and sat down 
again to her work. I could not look at her, I could not look at him, I 
knew quite well that he was looking at us both ; and I turned to the 
window and looked out there, at some shrubs that were drooping their 
heads in the cold. 

As soon as I could creep away, I crept up-stairs. My old dear bedroom 
was changed, and I was to lie a long way off. I rambled down-stairs to 
find anything that was like itself, so altered it all seemed ; and roamed 
into the yard. I very soon started back from there, for the empty dog- 
kennel was filled up with a great dog — deep mouthed and black-haired 
like Him — and he was very angry at the sight of me, and sprung out to 
get at me. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. S3 



CHAPTER IV. 

I FALL INTO DISGRACE. 

If the room to which my bed was removed, were a sentient thing that 
could give evidence, I might appeal to it at this day — who sleeps there 
now, I wonder ! — to bear witness for me what a heavy heart I carried to 
it. I went up there, hearing the dog in the yard bark after me all the 
way while I climbed the stairs ; and, looking as blank and strange upon the 
room as the room looked upon me, sat down with my small hands crossed, 
and thought. 

I thought of the oddest things. Of the shape of the room, of the cracks 
in the ceiling, of the paper on the wall, of the flaws in the window-glass 
making ripples and dimples on the prospect, of the washing-stand being 
ricketty on its three legs, and having a discontented something about it, 
which reminded me of Mrs. Gummidge under the influence of the old one. 
I was crying all the time, but, except that I was conscious of being cold 
and dejected, I am sure I never thought why I cried. At last in my 
desolation I began to consider that I was dreadfully in love with little 
Ein'ly, and had been torn away from her to come here where no one 
seemed to want me, or to care about me, half as much as she did. This 
made such a very miserable piece of business of it, that I rolled myself up 
in a corner of the counterpane, and cried myself to sleep. 

I was awoke by somebody saying " Here he is ! " and uncovering my 
hot head. My mother and Peggotty had come to look for me, and it was 
one of them who had done it. 

" Davy," said my mother. " What 's the matter ? " 

I thought it very strange that she should ask me, and answered, 
{! Nothing." I turned over on my face, I recollect, to hide my trembling 
lip, which answered her with greater truth. 

" Davy," said my mother. " Davy, my child ! " 

I dare say no words she could have uttered, would have affected me so 
much, then, as her calling me her child. I hid my tears in the bedclothes, 
and pressed her from me with my hand, when she would have raised 
me up. 

" This is your doing, Peggotty, you cruel thing ! " said my mother. 
" I have no doubt at all about it. How can you reconcile it to your 
conscience, I wonder, to prejudice my own boy against me, or against 
anybody who is dear to me ? What do you mean by it, Peggotty ? " 

Poor Peggotty lifted up her hands and eyes, and only answered, in a 
sort of paraphrase of the grace I usually repeated after dinner, "Lord 
forgive you, Mrs. Copperfield, and for what you have said this minute, 
may you never be truly sorry ! " 

" It 's enough to distract me," cried my mother. " In my honeymoon, 
too, when my most inveterate enemy might relent, one would think, and 
not envy me a little peace of mind and happiness. Davy, you naughty 
boy ! Peggotty, you savage creature ! Oh, dear me ! " cried my mother, 

D 



'34 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

turning from one of us to the other, in her pettish wilful manner, " what 
a troublesome world this is, when one has the most right to expect it to 
be as agreeable as possible ! " 

I felt the touch of a hand that I knew was neither her's nor Peggotty's, 
and slipped to my feet at the bed-side. It was Mr. Murdstone's hand, 
and he kept it on my arm as he said : 

"What's this? Clara, my love, have you forgotten? — Firmness, 
my dear ! " 

" I am very sorry, Edward," said my mother. " I meant to be very 
good, but I am so uncomfortable." 

" Indeed ! " he answered. " That 's a bad hearing, so soon, Clara." 

" I say it 's very hard I should be made so now," returned my mother, 
pouting; " and it is — very hard — isn't it ? " 

He drew her to him, whispered in her ear, and kissed her. I knew as 
well, when I saw my mother's head lean down upon his shoulder, and her 
arm touch his neck — I knew as well that he could mould her pliant nature 
into any form he chose, as I know, now, that he did it. 

" Go you below, my love," said Mr. Murdstone. " David and I will 
come down, together. My friend," turning a darkening face on Peggotty, 
when he had watched my mother out, and dismissed her with a nod and a 
smile : " do you know your mistress's name ? " 

" She has been my mistress a long time, sir," answered Peggotty. " I 
ought to it." 

" That 's true," he answered. " But I thought I heard you, as I came 
up-stairs, address her by a name that is not hers. She has taken mine, you 
know. Will you remember that ? " 

Peggotty, with some uneasy glances at me, curtseyed herself out of the 
room without replying ; seeing, I suppose, that she was expected to go, 
and had no excuse for remaining. When we two were left alone, he shut the 
door, and sitting on a chair, and holding me standing before him, looked 
steadily into my eyes. I felt my own attracted, no less steadily, to his. 
As I recall our being opposed thus, face to face, I seem again to hear my 
heart beat fast and high. 

"David," he said, making his lips thin, by pressing them together, 
" if I have an obstinate horse or dog to deal with, what do you think 
I do?" 

" I don't know." 

" I beat him." 

I had answered in a kind of breathless whisper, but I felt, in my silence, 
that my breath was shorter now. 

" I make him wince, and smart. I say to myself, ' I '11 conquer that 
fellow; ' and if it were to cost him all the blood he had, I should do it. 
What is that upon your face ? " 

"Dirt," I said. 

He knew it was the mark of tears as well as I. But if he had asked 
the question twenty times, each time with twenty blows, I believe my baby 
heart would have burst before I would have told him so. 

" You have a good deal of intelligence for a little fellow," he said, with 
a grave smile that belonged to him, " and you understood me very well, I 
see. Wash that face, sir, and come down with mo." 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 35 

He pointed to the washing-stand, which I had made out to be like 
Mrs. Gummidge, and motioned me with his head to obey him directly. I 
had little doubt then, and I have less doubt now, that he would have 
knocked me down without the least compunction, if I had hesitated. 

" Clara, my dear, 55 he said, when I had done his bidding, and he walked 
me into the parlor, with his hand still on my arm ; " you will not be made 
uncomfortable any more, I hope. We shall soon improve our youthful 
humours. 55 

God help me, I might have been improved for my whole life, I might 
have been made another creature perhaps, for life, by a kind word at that 
season. A word of encouragement and explanation, of pity for my 
childish ignorance, of welcome home, of reassurance to me that it was 
home, might have made me dutiful to him in my heart henceforth, instead 
of in my hypocritical outside, and might have made me respect instead of 
hate him. I thought my mother was sorry to see me standing in the 
room so scared and strange, and that, presently, when I stole to a chair, 
she followed me with her eyes more sorrowfully still — missing, perhaps, 
some freedom in my childish tread — but the word was not spoken, and 
the time for it was gone. 

"We dined alone, we three together. He seemed to be very fond of 
my mother — I am afraid I liked him none the better for that — and she 
was very fond of him. I gathered from what they said, that an elder 
sister of his was coming to stay with them, and that she was expected 
that evening. I am not certain whether I found out then, or afterwards, 
that, without being actively concerned in any business, he had some share 
in, or some annual charge upon the profits of, a wine-merchant 5 s house in 
London, with which his family had been connected from his great-grand- 
fathers time, and in which his sister had a similar interest ; but I may 
mention it in this place, whether or no. 

After dinner, when we were sitting by the fire, and I was meditating 
an escape to Peggotty without having the hardihood to slip away, lest 
it should offend the master of the house, a coach drove up to the 
garden-gate, and he went out to receive the visitor. My mother followed 
him. I was timidly following her, when she turned round at the parlor- 
door, in the dusk, and taking me in her embrace as she had been used to 
do, whispered me to love my new father and be obedient to him. She 
did this hurriedly and secretly, as if it were wrong, but tenderly ; and, 
putting out her hand behind her, held mine in it, until we came near to 
where he was standing in the garden, where she let mine go, and drew 
her's through his arm. 

It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady 
she was ; dark, like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face and 
voice ; and with very heavy eyebrows, nearly meeting over her large nose, as 
if, being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from wearing whiskers, she had 
carried them to that account. She brought with her, two uncompromising 
hard black boxes, with her initials on the lids in hard brass nails. 
When she paid the coachman she took her money out of a hard steel 
purse, and she kept the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung upon 
her arm by a heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had never, at that 
time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was. 

D 2 



36 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

She was brought into the parlor with many tokens of welcome, and 
there formally recognised my mother as a new and near relation. Then 
she looked at me, and said : 

" Is that your boy, sister-in-law ? " 

My mother acknowledged me. 

" Generally speaking," said Miss Murdstone, " I don't like boys. 
How d' ye do, boy ? " 

Under these encouraging circumstances, I replied that I was very well, 
and that I hoped she was the same ; with such an indifferent grace, that 
Miss Murdstone disposed of me in two words : 

" Wants manner I" 

Having uttered which, with great distinctness, she begged the favor of 
being shewn to her room, which became to me from that time forth a 
place of awe and dread, wherein the two black boxes were never seen open or 
known to be left unlocked, and where (for I peeped in once or twice when 
she was out) numerous little steel fetters and rivets, with which Miss 
Murdstone embellished herself when she was dressed, generally hung 
upon the looking-glass in formidable array. 

As well as I could make out, she had come for good, and had no 
intention of ever going again. She began to "help" my mother next 
morning, and was in and out of the store-closet all day, putting things to 
rights, and making havoc in the old arrangements. iUmost the first 
remarkable thing I observed in Miss Murdstone was, her being constantly 
haunted by a suspicion that the servants had a man secreted somewhere 
on the premises. Under the influence of this delusion, she dived into the 
coal-cellar at the most untimely hours, and scarcely ever opened the door 
of a dark cupboard without clapping it to again, in the belief that she 
had got him. 

Though there was nothing very airy about Miss Murdstone, she was a 
perfect Lark in point of getting up. She was up (and, as I believe to this 
horn*, looking for that man) before anybody in the house was stirring. 
Peggotty gave it as her opinion that she even slept with one eye open ; 
but I could not concur in this idea ; for I tried it myself after hearing the 
suggestion thrown out, and found it couldn't be done. 

On the very first morning after her arrival she was up and ringing her 
bell at cock-crow. When my mother came down to breakfast and was 
going to make the tea, Miss Murdstone gave her a kind of peck on the 
cheek, winch was her nearest approach to a kiss, and said : 

" Now, Clara, my dear, I am come here, you know, to relieve you of all 
the trouble I can. You're much too pretty and thoughtless" — my mother 
blushed but laughed, and seemed not to dislike this character — " to have 
any duties imposed upon you that can be undertaken by me. If you'll be 
so good as give me your keys, my dear, I'll attend to all this sort of thing 
in future." 

From that time, Miss Murdstone kept the keys in her own little jail all 
day, and under her pillow all night, and my mother had no more to do 
with them than I had. 

My mother did not suffer her authority to pass from her without a 
shadow of protest. One night when Miss Murdstone had been developing 
certain household plans to her brother, of which he signified his approba- 



OF DAVID COPPEHFIELI). 37 

tion, my mother suddenly began to cry, and said she thought she might 
have been consulted. 

" Clara !" said Mr. Murdstone sternly. " Clara ! I wonder at you.'* 

" Oh, it's very well to say you wonder, Edward !" cried my mother, 
" and it's very well for you to talk about firmness, but you wouldn't like 
it yourself." 

Firmness, I may observe, was the grand quality on which both Mr. and 
Miss Murdstone took their stand. However I might have expressed my 
comprehension of it at that time, if I had been called upon, I nevertheless 
did clearly comprehend in my own way, that it was another name for 
tyranny ; and for a certain gloomy, arrogant, devil's humour, that was in 
them both. The creed, as I should state it now, was this. Mr. Murd- 
stone was firm ; nobody in his world was to be so firm as Mr. Murdstone ; 
nobody else in his world was to be firm at all, for everybody was to be 
bent to his firmness. Miss Murdstone was an exception. She might be 
firm, but only by relationship, and in an inferior and tributary degree. My 
mother was another exception. She might be firm, and must be ; but 
only in bearing their firmness, and firmly believing there was no other 
firmness upon earth. 

" It 's very hard," said my mother, " that in my own house — " 

" My own house?" repeated Mr. Murdstone. " Clara !" 

" Our own house, I mean," faltered my mother, evidently frightened 
— " I hope you must know what I mean, Edward — it 's very hard that in 
your own house I may not have a word to say about domestic matters. 
I am sure I managed very well before we were married. There's evi- 
dence," said my mother, sobbing ; " ask Peggotty if I didn't do very well 
when I wasn't interfered with !" 

" Edward," said Miss Murdstone, " let there be an end of this. I go 
to-morrow." 

" Jane Murdstone," said her brother, " be silent ! How dare you to 
insinuate that you don't know my character better than your words imply ? " 

" I am sure," my poor mother went on, at a grievous disadvantage, and 
with many tears, " I don't want anybody to go. I should be very 
miserable and unhappy if anybody was to go. T don't ask much. I am 
not unreasonable. I only want to be consulted sometimes. I am very 
much obliged to anybody who assists me, and I only want to be consulted 
as a mere form, sometimes. I thought you were pleased, once, with my 
being a little inexperienced and girlish, Edward — I am sure you said so — 
but you seem to hate me for it now, you are so severe." 

" Edward," said Miss Murdstone, again, " let there be an end of this. 
I go to-morrow." 

" Jane Murdstone," thundered Mr. Murdstone. " Will you be silent ? 
How dare you ? " 

Miss Murdstone made a jail-delivery of her pocket-handkerchief, and 
held it before her eyes. 

" Clara," he continued, looking at my mother, " you surprise me ! You 
astound me ! Yes, I had a satisfaction in the thought of marrying an 
inexperienced and artless person, and forming her character, and infusing 
into it some amount of that firmness and decision of which it stood in 
need. But when Jane Murdstone is kind enough to come to my assistance 



38 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

in this endeavour, and to assume, for my sake, a condition something- 
like a housekeeper's, and when she meets with a base return — " 

" Oh, pray, pray, Edward," cried my mother, " don't accuse me of being 
ungrateful. I am sure I am not ungrateful. No one ever said I was, 
before. I have many faults, but not that. Oh, don't, my dear ! " 

" When Jane Murdstone meets, I say," he went on, after waiting until 
my mother was silent, "with a base return, that feeling of mine is chilled 
and altered." 

"Don't, my love, say that!" implored my mother, very piteously. 
" Oh, don't, Edward ! I can't bear to hear it. Whatever I am, I am 
affectionate. I know I am affectionate. I wouldn't say it, if I wasn't 
certain that I am. Ask Peggotty. I am sure she '11 tell you I 'm affec- 
tionate." 

" There is no extent of mere weakness, Clara," said Mr. Murdstone in 
reply, " that can have the least weight with me. You lose breath." 

" Pray let us be friends," said my mother, " I couldn't live under 
coldness or unkindness. I am so sorry. I have a great many defects, I 
know, and it 's very good of you, Edward, with your strength of mind, to 
endeavour to correct them for me. Jane, I don't object to anything. 
I should be quite broken-hearted if you thought of leaving — " My 
mother was too much overcome to go on. 

" Jane Murdstone," said Mr. Murdstone to his sister, " any harsh words 
between us are, I hope, uncommon. It is not my fault that so unusual an 
occurrence has taken place to-night. I was betrayed into it by another. 
Nor is it your fault. You were betrayed into it by another. Let us 
both try to forget it. And as this," he added, after these magnanimous 
words, " is not a fit scene for the boy — David, go to bed ! " 

I could hardly find the door, through the tears that stood in my eyes. 
I was so sorry for my mother's distress ; but I groped my way out, and 
groped my way up to my room in the dark, without even having the 
heart to say good night to Peggotty, or to get a candle from her. When 
her coming up to look for me, an hour or so afterwards, awoke me, 
she said that my mother had gone to bed poorly, and that Mr. and Miss 
Murdstone were sitting alone. 

Going down next morning rather earlier than usual, I paused outside 
the parlor-door, on hearing my mother's voice. She was very earnestly 
and humbly entreating Miss Murdstone's pardon, which that lady granted, 
and a perfect reconciliation took place. I never knew my mother after- 
wards to give an opinion on any matter, without first appeakng to Miss 
Murdstone, or without having first ascertained, by some sure means, what 
Miss Murdstone's opinion was ; and I never saw Miss Murdstone, when out 
of temper (she was infirm that way), move her hand towards her bag as if 
she were going to take out the keys and offer to resign them to my 
mother, without seeing that my mother was in a terrible fright. 

The gloomy taint that was in the Murdstone blood, darkened the 
Murdstone religion, which was austere and wrathful. I have thought, 
since, that its assuming that character was a necessary consequence of 
Mr. Murdstone's firmness, which wouldn't allow him to let any body off 
from the utmost weight of the severest penalties he could find any excuse 
for. Be this as it may, I well remember the tremendous visages with 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 39 

which we used to go to church, and the changed air of the place. Again, 
the dreaded Sunday comes round, and I file into the old pew first, 
like a guarded captive brought to a condemned service. Again, Miss 
Murdstone, in a black velvet gown, that looks as if it had been made 
out of a pall, follows close upon me; then my mother; then her 
husband. There is no Peggotty now, as in the old time. Again, I listen 
to Miss Murdstone mumbling the responses, and emphasising all the 
dread words with a cruel relish. Again, I see her dark eyes roll round the 
church when she says " miserable sinners," as if she were calling all 
the congregation names. Again, I catch rare glimpses of my mother, 
moving her lips timidly between the two, with one of them muttering at 
each ear like low thunder. Again, I wonder with a sudden fear whether 
it is likely that our good old clergyman can be wrong, and Mr. and Miss , 
Murdstone right, and that all the angels in Heaven can be destroying angels. 
Again, if I move a finger or relax a muscle of my face, Miss Murdstone 
pokes me with her prayer-book, and makes my side ache. 

Yes, and again, as we walk home, I note some neighbours looking at my 
mother, and at me, and whispering. Again, as the three go on arm-in-arm, 
and I linger behind alone, I follow some of those looks, and wonder if my 
mother's step be really not so light as I have seen it, and if the gaiety of 
her beauty be really almost worried away. Again, I wonder whether any 
of the neighbours call to mind, as I do, how we used to walk home 
together, she and I ; and I wonder stupidly about that, all the dreary 
dismal day. 

There had been some talk on occasions of my going to boarding- 
school. Mr. and Miss Murdstone had originated it, and my mother had 
of course agreed with them. Nothing, however, was concluded on the 
subject yet. In the meantime, I learnt lessons at home. 

Shall I ever forget those lessons ! They were presided over nominally 
by my mother, but really by Mr. Murdstone and his sister, who were always 
present, and found them a favourable occasion for giving my mother 
lessons in that miscalled firmness, which was the bane of both our lives. 
I believe I was kept at home, for that purpose. I had been apt enough to 
learn, and willing enough, when my mother and I had lived alone together. 
I can faintly remember learning the alphabet at her knee. To this day, 
when I look upon the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty 
of their shapes, and the easy good-nature of and Q and S, seem to 
present themselves again before me as they used to do. But they recall no 
feeling of disgust or reluctance. On the contrary, I seem to have walked 
along a path of flowers as far as the crocodile-book, and to have been 
cheered by the gentleness of my mother's voice and manner all the way. 
But these solemn lessons which succeeded those, I remember as the death- 
blow at my peace, and a grievous daily drudgery and misery. They were 
very long, very numerous, very hard — perfectly unintelligible, some of 
them, to me — and I was generally as much bewildered by them as I 
believe my poor mother was herself. 

Let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back 
again. 

I come into the second-best parlor after breakfast, with my books, 
and an exercise-book, and a slate. My mother is ready for me at her 



40 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

writing-desk, but not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone in his easy-chair by the 
window (though he pretends to be reading a book), or as Miss Murdstone, 
sitting near my mother stringing steel beads. The very sight of these 
two has such an influence over me, that I begin to feel the words I have 
been at infinite pains to get into my head, all sliding away, and going I 
don't know where. I wonder where they do go, by-the-by ? 

I hand the first book to my mother. Perhaps it is a grammar, perhaps 
a history, or geography. I take a last drowning look at the page as I give 
it into her hand, and start off aloud at a racing pace while I have got it 
fresh. I trip over a word. Mr. Murdstone looks up. I trip over 
another word. Miss Murdstone looks up. I redden, tumble over half-a- 
dozen words, and stop. I think my mother would show me the book if 
she dared, but she does not dare, and she says softly : 

"Oh, Davy, Davy!" 

"Now, Clara," says Mr. Murdstone, "be firm with the boy. Don't 
say * Oh, Davy, Davy ! ' That 's childish. He knows his lesson, or he does 
not know it." 

" He does not know it," Miss Murdstone interposes awfully. 

" I am really afraid he does not," says my mother. 

"Then you see, Clara," returns Miss Murdstone, "you should just 
give him the book back, and make him know it." 

"Yes, certainly," says my mother ; " that is what I intend to do, my 
dear Jane. Now, Davy, try once more, and don't be stupid." 

I obey the first clause of the injunction by trying once more, but am 
not so successful with the second, for I am very stupid. I tumble down 
before I get to the old place, at a point where I was all right before, and 
stop to think. But I can't think about the lesson. I think of the 
number of yards of net in Miss Murdstone' s cap, or of the price of 
Mr. Murdstone's dressing-gown, or any such ridiculous problem that I 
have no business with, and don't want to have anything at all to do with. 
Mr. Murdstone makes a movement of impatience which I have been 
expecting for a long time. Miss Murdstone does the same. My mother 
glances submissively at them, shuts the book, and lays it by as an arrear 
to be worked out when my other tasks are done. 

There is a pile of these arrears very soon, and it swells like a rolling 
snowball. The bigger it gets, the more stupid I" get. The case is. so 
hopeless, and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense, that I 
give up all idea of getting out, and abandon myself to my fate. The 
despairing way in which my mother and I look at each other, as I blunder 
on, is truly melancholy. But the greatest effect in these miserable lessons 
is when my mother (thinking nobody is observing her) tries to give me 
the cue by the motion of her lips. At that instant, Miss Murdstone, who has 
been lying in wait for nothing else all along, says in a deep warning voice : 

"Clara!" 

My mother starts, colors, and smiles faintly. Mr. Murdstone comes 
out of his chair, takes the book, throws it at me or boxes my ears with 
it, and turns me out of the room by the shoulders. 

Even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to happen, in the shape 
of an appalling sum. This is invented for me, and delivered to me 
orally by Mr. Murdstone, and begins, " If I go into a cheesemonger's 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 41 

shop, and buy five thousand double-Gloucester cheeses at fourpence- 
halfpenny each, present payment" — at which I see Miss Murdstone 
secretly overjoyed. I pore over these cheeses without any result or enlighten- 
ment until dinner-time ; when, having made a Mulatto of myself by getting 
the dirt of the slate into the pores of my skin, I have a slice of bread to 
help me out with the cheeses, and am considered in disgrace for the rest 
of the evening. 

It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if my unfortunate studies 
generally took this course. I could have done very well if I had been without 
the Murdstones ; but the influence of the Murdstones upon me was like the 
fascination of two snakes on a wretched young bird. Even when I did get 
through the morning with tolerable credit, there was not much gained but 
dinner ; for Miss Murdstone never could endure to see me untasked, and 
if I rashly made any show of being unemployed, called her brother's 
attention to me by saying, " Clara, my dear, there's nothing like work — 
give your boy an exercise ;" which caused me to be clapped down to some 
new labor, there and then. As to any recreation with other children of 
my age, I had very little of that ; for the gloomy theology of the 
Murdstones made all children out to be a swarm of little vipers (though 
there teas a child once set in the midst of the Disciples), and held that 
they contaminated one another. 

The natural result of this treatment, continued, I suppose, for some six 
months or more, was to make me sullen, dull, and dogged. I was not 
made the less so, by my sense of being daily more and more shut out and 
alienated from my mother. I believe I should have been almost stupified 
but for one circumstance. 

It was this. My father had left a small collection of books in a little room 
up-stairs, to which I had access (for it adjoined my own) and which nobody 
else in our house ever troubled. From that blessed little room, Koderick 
Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, The Vicar of 
"Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Bias, and Robinson Crusoe, came out, a glorious 
host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of some- 
thing beyond that place and time, — they, and the Arabian Nights, and the 
Tales of the Genii, — and did me no harm ; for whatever harm was in some 
of them was not there for me ; I knew nothing of it. It is astonishing to 
me now, how I found time, in the midst of my porings and blunderings 
over heavier themes, to read those books as I did. It is curious to mc 
how I could ever have consoled myself under my small troubles (which 
were great troubles to me), by impersonating my favorite characters in 
them — as I did — and by putting Mr. and Miss Murdstone into all the bad 
ones — which I did too. I have been Tom Jones (a child's Tom Jones, 
a harmless creature) for a week together. I have sustained my own idea 
of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch, I verily believe. I had a 
greedy relish for a few volumes of Voyages and Travels — I forget what, 
now — that were on those shelves ; and for days and days I can remember 
to have gone about my region of our house, armed with the centre-piece 
out of an old set of boot-trees — the perfect realisation of Captain Somebody, 
of the Royal British Navy, in danger of being beset by savages, and 
resolved to sell his life at a great price. The Captain never tost dignity, 
from having his ears boxed with the Latin Grammar. I did ; but the 



4 2> THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Captain was a Captain and a hero, in despite of all the grammars of all 
the languages in the world, dead or alive. 

This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the 
picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at play in 
the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for life. Every barn 
in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church, and every foot of the 
churchyard, had some association of its own, in my mind, connected with 
these books, and stood for some locality made famous in them. I have 
seen Tom Pipes go climbing up the church-steeple ; I have watched Strap, 
with the knapsack on his back, stopping to rest himself upon the wicket- 
gate; and I hiow that Commodore Trunnion held that club with 
Mr. Pickle, in the parlor of our little village alehouse. 

The reader now understands as well as I do, what I was when I came 
to that point of my youthful history to which I am now coming again. 

One morning when I went into the parlor with my books, I found 
my mother looking anxious, Miss Murdstone looking firm, and Mr. 
Murdstone binding something round the bottom of a cane — a lithe and 
limber cane, which he left off binding when I came in, and poised and 
switched in the air. 

" I tell you, Clara," said Mr. Murdstone, " I have been often flogged 
myself." 

" To be sure ; of course," said Miss Murdstone. 

" Certainly, my dear Jane," faltered my mother, meekly. "But — but 
do you think it did Edward good ?" 

"Do you think it did Edward harm, Clara?" asked Mr. Murdstone, 
gravely. " 

"That 's the point !" said his sister. 

To this my mother returned, "Certainly, my dear Jane," and said no more. 

I felt apprehensive that I was personally interested in this dialogue, 
and sought Mr. Murdstone's eye as it lighted on mine. 

" Now, David," he said — and I saw that cast again, as he said it — " you 
must be far more careful to-day than usual." He gave the cane another 
poise, and another switch; and having finished his preparation of it, laid it 
down beside him, with an expressive look, and took up his book. 

This was a good freshener to my presence of mind, as a beginning. I 
felt the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or line by line, 
but by the entire page. I tried to lay hold of them ; but they seemed, if I 
may so express it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me with a 
smoothness there was no checking. 

We began badly, and went on worse. I had come in, with an idea of 
distinguishing myself rather, conceiving that I was very well prepared ; 
but it turned out to be quite a mistake. Book after book was added to 
the heap of failures, Miss Murdstone being firmly watchful of us all the 
time. And when we came at last to the five thousand cheeses (canes he 
made it that day, I remember), my mother burst out crying. 

" Clara ! " said Miss Murdstone, in her warning voice. 

" I am not quite well, my dear Jane, I think," said my mother. 

I saw him wink, solemnly, at his sister, as he rose and said, taking up 
the cane ; 

"Why, Jane, we can hardly expect Clara to bear, with perfect firmness, 



OP DAVID COPPERPIELD. 43 

the worry and torment that David has occasioned her to-day. That 
would be stoical. Clara is greatly strengthened and improved, but we 
can hardly expect so much from her. David, you and I will go up-stairs, 
boy." 

As he took me out at the door, my mother ran towards us. Miss 
Murdstone said, " Clara ! are you a perfect fool ? " and interfered. I saw 
my mother stop her ears then, and I heard her crying. 

He walked me up to my room slowly and gravely — I am certain he 
had a delight in that formal parade of executing justice — and when we 
got there, suddenly twisted my head under his arm. 

" Mr. Murdstone ! Sir ! " I cried to him. " Don't ! Pray don't beat 
me ! I have tried to learn, sir, but I can't learn while you and Miss 
Murdstone are by. I can't indeed ! " 

" Can't you, indeed, David ? " he said. " We '11 try that." 

He had my head as in a vice, but I twined round him somehow, and 
stopped him for a moment, entreating him not to beat me. It was only 
for a moment that I stopped him, for he cut me heavily an instant 
afterwards, and in the same instant I caught the hand with which lie held 
me in my mouth, between my teeth, and bit it through. It sets my teeth 
on edge to think of it. 

He beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to death. Above all 
the noise we made, I heard them running up the stairs, and crying out — 
I heard my mother crying out — and Peggotty. Then he was gone ; and 
the door was locked outside ; and I was lying, fevered and hot, and torn, 
and sore, and raging in my puny way, upon the floor. 

How well I recollect, when I became quiet, what an unnatural stillness 
seemed to reign through the whole house ! How well I remember, when 
my smart and passion began to cool, how wicked I began to feel ! 

I sat listening for a long while, but there was not a sound. I crawled 
up from the floor, and saw my face in the glass, so swollen, red, and ugly, 
that it almost frightened me. My stripes were sore and stiff, and made me 
cry afresh, when I moved ; but they were nothing to the guilt I felt. It 
lay heavier on my breast than if I had been a most atrocious criminal, I 
dare say. 

It had begun to grow dark, and I had shut the window (I had been lying, 
for the most part, with my head upon the sill, by turns crying, dozing, 
and looking listlessly out), when the key was turned, and Miss Murdstone 
came in with some bread and meat, and milk. These she put down upon 
the table without a word, glaring at me the while with exemplary firmness, 
and then retired, locking the door after her. 

Long after it was dark I sat there, wondering whether anybody else 
would come. When this appeared improbable for that night, I undressed, 
and went to bed ; and, there, I began to wonder fearfully what would be 
done to me. Whether it was a criminal act that I had committed ? 
Whether I should be taken into custody, and sent to prison? Whether 
I was at all in danger of being hanged ? 

I never shall forget the waking, next morning; the being cheerful and 
fresh for the first moment, and then the being weighed down by the stale 
and dismal oppression of remembrance. Miss Murdstone reappeared 
before I was out of bed; told me, in so many words, that 1 was free to 



44 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

walk in the garden for half an hour and no longer ; and retired, leaving 
the door open, that I might avail myself of that permission. 

I did so, and did so every morning of my imprisonment, which lasted 
five days. If I could have seen my mother alone, I should have gone 
down on my knees to her and besought her forgiveness ; hut I saw no one, 
Miss Murdstone excepted, during the whole time — except at evening- 
prayers in the parlor ; to which I was escorted by Miss Murdstone after 
everybody else was placed ; where I was stationed, a young outlaw, all 
alone by myself near the door ; and whence I was solemnly conducted b} r 
my jailer, before anyone arose from the devotional posture. I only 
observed that my mother was as far off from me as she could be, and kept 
her face another way so that I never saw it ; and that Mr. Murdstone's 
hand was bound up in a large linen wrapper. 

The length of those five days I can convey no idea of to any one. 
They occupy the place of years in my remembrance. The way in which 
I listened to all the incidents of the house that made themselves audible 
to me; the ringing of bells, the opening and shutting of doors, the 
murmuring of voices, the footsteps on the stairs ; to any laughing, 
whistling, or singing, outside, which seemed more dismal than anything 
else to me in my solitude and disgrace — the uncertain pace of the hours, 
especially at night, when I would wake thinking it was morning, and 
find that the family were not yet gone to bed, and that all the length of 
night had yet to come — the depressed dreams and nightmares I had — the 
return of day, noon, afternoon, evening, when the boys played in the 
churchyard, and I watched them from a distance within the room, being 
ashamed to show myself at the window lest they should know I was a 
prisoner — the strange sensation of never hearing myself speak — the 
fleeting intervals of something like cheerfulness, which came with eating 
and drinking, and went away with it — the setting in of rain one evening, 
with a fresh smell, and its coming down faster and faster between me 
and the church, until it and gathering night seemed to quench me in 
gloom, and fear, and remorse — all this appears to have gone round and 
round for years instead of days, it is so vividly and strongly stamped on 
my remembrance. 

On the last night of my restraint, I was awakened by hearing my own 
name spoken in a whisper. I started up in bed, and putting out my arms 
in the dark, said : 

" Is that you, Peggotty ?" 

There was no immediate answer, but presently I heard my name again, 
in a tone so very mysterious and awful, that I think I should have gone 
into a fit, if it had not occurred to me that it must have come through the 
keyhole. 

I groped my way to the door, and putting my own lips to the keyhole, 
whispered : 

" Is that you, Peggotty, dear?" 

"Yes, my own precious Davy," she replied. "Be as soft as a mouse, 
or the Cat '11 hear us." 

I understood this to mean Miss Murdstone, and was sensible of the 
urgency of the case ; her room being close by. 

" How 's mama, dear Peggotty ? Is she very angry with me ? " 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 45 

I could hear Peggotty crying softly on her side of the keyhole, as I was 
doing on mine, before she answered. "No. Not very." 

" What is going to be done with me, Peggotty dear ? Do you know ? " 

" School. Near London," was Peggotty 's answer. I was obliged to get 
her to repeat it, for she spoke it the first time quite down my throat, in 
consequence of my having forgotten to take my mouth away from the key- 
hole and put my ear there ; and though her words tickled me a good deal, 
I didn't hear them. 

"When, Peggotty?" 

" To-morrow." 

" Is that the reason why Miss Murdstone took the clothes out of my 
drawers ? " which she had done, though I have forgotten to mention it. 

" Yes," said Peggotty. " Box." 
• " Shan't I see mama ? " 

" Yes," said Peggotty. " Morning." 

Then Peggotty fitted her mouth close to the keyhole, and delivered these 
words through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a keyhole has 
ever been the medium of communicating, I will venture to assert : shoot- 
ing in each broken little sentence in a convulsive little burst of its own. 

" Davy, dear. If I ain't ben azackly as intimate with you. Lately, as I 
used to be. It ain't becase I don't love you. Just as well and more, my 
pretty poppet. It 's because I thought it better for you. And for some one 
else besides. Davy, my darling, are you listening ? Can you hear ? " 

" Ye — ye — ye — yes, Peggotty !" I sobbed. 

" My own !" said Peggotty, with infinite compassion. " What I want 
to say, is. That you must never forget me. Por I '11 never forget you. And 
I '11 take as much care of your mama, Davy. As ever I took of you. And I 
won't leave her. The day may come when she '11 be glad to Jay her poor 
head. On her stupid, cross old Peggotty's arm again. And I '11 write to 
you, my dear. Though I ain't no scholar. And I '11 — I '11 — " Peggotty 
fell to kissing the keyhole, as she couldn't kiss me. 

" Thank you, dear Peggotty !" said I. " Oh, thank you ! Thank 
you ! Will you promise me one thing, Peggotty ? Will you write and 
tell Mr. Peggotty and little Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge and Ham, that 
I am not so bad as they might suppose, and that I sent 'em all my love — 
especially to little Em'ly ? Will you, if you please, Peggotty?" 

The kind soul promised, and we both of us kissed the keyhole with the 
greatest affection — I patted it with my hand, I recollect, as if it had been 
her honest face — and parted. Prom that night there grew up in my 
breast, a feeling for Peggotty, which I cannot very well define. She did 
not replace my mother ; no one could do that ; but she came into a 
vacancy in my heart, which closed upon her, and I felt towards her some- 
thing I have never felt for any other human being. It was a sort of comical 
affection too ; and yet if she had died, I cannot think what I should have 
done, or how I should have acted out the tragedy it would have been 
to me. 

In the morning Miss Murdstone appeared as usual, and told me I was 
going to school ; which was not altogether such news to mc as she 
supposed. She also informed me that when I was dressed, Lwas to come 
down-stairs into the parlor, and have my breakfast. There, I found my 



46 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

mother, very pale and with red eyes : into whose arms I ran, and begged 
her pardon from my suffering soul. 

" Oh, Davy ! " she said. " That you could hurt any one I love ! Try to 
be better, pray to be better ! I forgive you ; but I am so grieved, Davy, 
that you should have such bad passions in your heart. 5 ' 

They had persuaded her that I was a wicked fellow, and she was more 
sorry for that, than for my going away. I felt it sorely. I tried to eat 
my parting breakfast, but my tears dropped upon my bread-and-butter, 
and trickled into my tea. I saw my mother look at me sometimes, 
and then glance at 'the watchful Miss Murdstone, and then look down, or 
look away. 

" Master Copperfield's box there ! " said Miss Murdstone, when wheels 
were heard at the gate. 

I looked for Peggotty, but it was not she ; neither she nor Mr. Murdstone 
appeared. My former acquaintance, the carrier, was at the door; the 
box was taken out to his cart, and lifted in. 

" Clara ! " said Miss Murdstone, in her warning note. 

" Ready, my dear Jane," returned my mother. " Good bye, Davy. 
You are going for your own good. Good bye, my child. You will come 
home in the holidays, and be a better boy." 

" Clara ! " Miss Murdstone repeated. 

" Certainly, my dear Jane," replied my mother, who was holding me. 
" I forgive you, my dear boy. God bless you ! " 

" Clara ! " Miss Murdstone repeated. 

Miss Murdstone was good enough to take me out to the cart, and to 
say on the way that she hoped I would repent, before I came to a bad 
end ; and then I got into the cart, and the lazy horse walked off with it. 



CHAPTER V. 

I AM SENT AWAY PROM HOME. 



We might have gone about half a mile, and my pocket-handkerchief was 
quite wet through, when the carrier stopped short. 

Looking out to ascertain what for, I saw, to my amazement, Peggotty 
burst from a hedge and climb into the cart. She took me in both her 
arms, and squeezed me to her stays until the pressure on my nose was 
extremely painful, though I never thought of that till afterwards when I 
found it very tender. Not a single word did Peggotty speak. Eeleasing 
one of her arms, she put it down in her pocket to the elbow, and brought 
out some paper bags of cakes which she crammed into my pockets, and a 
purse which she put into my hand, but not one word did she say. After 
another and a final squeeze with both arms, she got down from the cart 
and ran away ; and, my belief is, and has always been, without a solitary 
button on her gown. I picked up one, of several that were rolling about, 
and treasured it as a keepsake for a long time. 

The carrier looked at me, as if to enquire, if she were coming back. 



OF DAVID COPPEEJTELD. 47 

I shook my head, and said I thought not. cc Then come up/' said the 
carrier to the lazy horse ; who came up accordingly. 

Having by this time cried as much as I possibly could, I began to think 
it was of no use crying any more, especially as neither Roderick Eandom, 
nor that Captain in the Eoyal British Navy, had ever cried, that I could 
remember, in trying situations. The carrier, seeing me in this resolution, 
proposed that my pocket-handkerchief should be spread upon the horse's 
back to dry. I thanked him, and assented; and particularly small it 
looked, under those circumstances. 

I had now leisure to examine the purse. It was a stiff leather 
purse, with a snap, and had three bright shillings in it, which Peggotty 
had evidently polished up with whitening, for my greater delight. But 
its most precious contents were two half-crowns folded together in a bit of 
paper, on which was written, in my mother's hand, " For Davy. With my 
love." I was so overcome by this, that I asked the carrier to be so good 
as reach me my pocket-handkerchief again ; but he said he thought I had 
better do without it ; and I thought I really had ; so I wiped my eyes 
on my sleeve and stopped myself. 

For good, too ; though, in consequence of my previous emotions, I was 
still occasionally seized with a stormy sob. After we had jogged on for 
some little time, I asked the carrier if he was going all the way. 

" All the way where ? " enquired the carrier. 

"There," I said. 

" Where 's there ? " enquired the carrier. 

" Near London ? " I said. 

" Why that horse," said the carrier, jerking the rein to point him out, 
''• would be deader than pork afore he got over half the ground." 

"Are you only going to Yarmouth then ? " I asked. 

" That 's about it, " said the carrier. " And there I shall take you to 
the stage-cutch, and the stage-cutch that '11 take you to — wherever it is. " 

As this was a great deal for the carrier (whose name was Mr. Barkis) 
to say — he being, as I observed in a former chapter, of a phlegmatic 
temperament, and not at all conversational — I offered him a cake as a 
mark of attention, which he ate at one gulp, exactly like an elephant, and 
which made no more impression on his big face than it would have done 
on an elephant's. 

" Did she make 'em, now ? " said Mr. Barkis, always leaning forward, 
in his slouching way, on the footboard of the cart with an arm on each 
knee. 

" Peggotty, do you mean, sir ? " 

" Ah ! " said Mr. Barkis. " Her. " 

" Yes. She makes all our pastry, and does all our cooking. " 

" Do she though ? " said Mr. Barkis. 

He made up his mouth as if to whistle, but he didn't whistle. He sat 
looking at the horse's ears, as if he saw something new there ; and sat so, 
for a considerable time. By-and-by, he said : 

" No sweethearts, I b'lieve ? " 

" Sweetmeats did you say, Mr. Barkis ? " For I thought he wanted 
something else to cat, and had pointedly alluded to that description of 
refreshment. 



48 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Hearts, " said Mr. Barkis. " Sweet hearts; no person walks with her !" 

" With Peggotty ? " 

" Ah ! " he said. " Her. " 

" Oh, no. She never had a sweetheart. " 

" Didn't she though ! " said Mr. Barkis. 

Again he made up his mouth to whistle, and again he didn't whistle, 
but sat looking at the horse's ears. 

" So she makes, " said Mr. Barkis, after a long interval of reflection, 
" all the apple parsties, and doos all the cooking, do she ? " 

I replied that such was the fact. 

" Well. I '11 tell you what, " said Mr. Barkis. " P'raps you might be 
writin' to her ? " 

" I shall certainly write to her, " I rejoined. 

" Ah ! " he said, slowly turning his eyes towards me. " Well ! If you 
was writin' to her, p'raps you 'd recollect to say that Barkis was willin' ; 
would you. " 

" That Barkis is willing, " I repeated, innocently. " Is that all the 
message ? " 

" Ye — es, " he said, considering. " Ye — es. Barkis is willin'. " 

" But you will be at Blunderstone again to-morrow, Mr. Barkis, " I 
said, faltering a little at the idea of my being far away from it then, " and 
could give your own message so much better. " 

As he repudiated this suggestion, however, with a jerk of his head, and 
once more confirmed his previous request by saying, with profound gravity, 
" Barkis is willin'. That 's the message, " I readily undertook its 
transmission. While I was waiting for the coach in the hotel at Yarmouth 
that very afternoon, I procured a sheet of paper and an inkstand, and 
wrote a note to Peggotty which ran thus : " My dear Peggotty. I have 
come here safe. Barkis is willing. My love to mama. Yours affec- 
tionately. P. S. He says he particularly wants you to know — Barkis is 
willing. " 

When I had taken this commission on myself prospectively, Mr. Barkis 
relapsed into perfect silence ; and I, feeling quite worn out by all that had 
happened lately, lay down on a sack in the cart and fell asleep. I slept 
soundly until we got to Yarmouth ; which was so entirely new and strange 
to me in the inn-yard to which we drove, that I at once abandoned a 
latent hope I had had of meeting with some of Mi'. Peggotty's family 
there, perhaps even with little Em'ly herself. 

The coach was in the yard, shining very much all over, but without 
any horses to it as yet ; and it looked in that state as if nothing was more 
unlikely than its ever going to London. I was thinking this, and 
wondering what would ultimately become of my box, which Mr. Barkis 
had put down on the yard-pavement by the pole (he having driven up 
the yard to turn his cart), and also what would ultimately become of me, 
when a lady looked out of a bow-window where some fowls and joints of 
meat were hanging up, and said : 

" Is that the little gentleman from Blunderstone ? " 

" Yes, ma'am," I said. 

" What name ? " enquired the lady. 

" Copperfield, ma'am," I said. 







1 ; /ng/^u€^w%/^ 



zs a, 






OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 49 

"That won't do," returned the lady. "Nobody's dinner is paid for 
here, in that name." 

" Is it Murdstone, ma'am? " I said. 

" If you're Master Murdstone," said the lady, "why do you go and 
give another name, first ? " 

I explained to the lady how it was, who then rang a bell, arid called 
out, "William! show the coffee-room!" upon which a J waiter came 
running out of a kitchen on the opposite side of the yard to show it, 
and seemed a good deal surprised when he found he was only to show 
it to me. 

It was a large long room with some large maps in it. I doubt if I 
could have felt much stranger if the maps had been real foreign countries, 
and I cast away in the middle of them. I felt it was taking a liberty to 
sit down, with my cap in my hand, on the corner of the chair nearest the 
door ; and when the waiter laid a cloth on purpose for me, and put a set 
of castors on it, I think I must have turned red all over with modesty. 

He brought me some chops, and vegetables, and took the covers off in 
such a bouncing manner that I was afraid I must have given him some 
offence. But he greatly relieved my mind by putting a chair for me at 
the table, and saying, very affably, " Now, six-foot ! come on ! " 

I thanked him, and took my seat at the board ; but found it extremely 
difficult to handle my knife and fork with anything like dexterity, 
or to avoid splashing myself with the gravy, while he was standing- 
opposite, staring so hard, and making me blush in the most dreadful 
manner every time I caught his eye. After watching me into the second 
chop, he said : 

" There 's half a pint of ale for you. Will you have it now ? " 

I thanked him, and said "Yes." Upon which he poured it out of a jug into 
a large tumbler, and held it up against the light, and made it look beautiful. 

" My eye ! " he said. " It seems a good deal, don't it ? " 

" It does seem a good deal," I answered with a smile. For it was quite 
delightful to me, to find him so pleasant. He was a twinkling-eyed, pimple- 
faced man, with his hair standing upright all over his head ; and as he 
stood with one arm a-kimbo, holding up the glass to the light with the 
other hand, he looked quite friendly. 

" There was a gentleman here, yesterday," he said — " a stout gentleman, 
by the name of Topsawyer — perhaps you know him !" 

" No," I said, " I don't think " 

"In breeches and gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, grey coat, speckled 
choaker," said the waiter. 

"No," I said bashfully, " I haven't the pleasure " 

" He came in here," said the waiter, looking at the light through the 
tumbler, " ordered a glass of this ale — would order it — I told him not — ■ 
drank it, and fell dead. It was too old for him. It oughtn't to be 
drawn ; that 's the fact." 

I was very much shocked to hear of this melancholy accident, and said 
I thought I had better have some water. 

" Why you see," said the waiter, still looking at the light through the 
tumbler, with one of his eyes shut up, " our people don't like things being 
ordered and left, It offends 'em. But /'ll drink it, if you like. I 'm 

E 



50 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

used to it, and use is everything. I don't think it '11 hurt me, if I throw 
my head back, and take it off quick. Shall I ? " 

I replied that he would much oblige me by drinking it, if he thought he 
could do it safely, but by no means otherwise. When he did throw his 
head back, and take it off quick, I had a horrible fear, I confess, of seeing 
him meet the fate of the lamented Mr. Topsawyer, and fall lifeless on the 
carpet. But it didn't hurt him. On the contrary, I thought he seemed 
the fresher for it. 

" What have we got here ? " he said, putting a fork into my dish. " Not 
chops?" 

" Chops," I said. 

" Lord bless my soul ! " he exclaimed, " I didn't know they were chops. 
Why, a chop's the very thing to take off the bad effects of that beer ! 
Ain't it lucky ? " 

So he took a chop by the bone in one hand, and a potato in the other, 
and ate away with a very good appetite, to my extreme satisfaction. He 
afterwards took another chop, and another potato ; and after that, another 
chop and another potato. When we had done, he brought me a pudding, 
and having set it before me, seemed to ruminate, and to become absent in 
his mind for some moments. 

"How's the pie? " he said, rousing himself. 

"It's a pudding," I made answer. 

" Pudding ! " he exclaimed. " Why, bless me, so it is ! What ! " 
looking at it nearer. "You don't mean to say it 's a batter-pudding ! " 

" Tes, it is indeed." 

"Why, a batter-pudding," he said, taking up a table-spoon, "is my 
favorite pudding ! Ain't that lucky ? Come on, little 'un, and let 's see 
who '11 get most." 

The waiter certainly got most. He entreated me more than once to 
come in and win, but what with his table-spoon to my tea-spoon, his 
dispatch to my dispatch, and his appetite to my appetite, I was left far 
behind at the first mouthful, and had no chance with him. I never saw 
any one enjoy a pudding so much, I think; and he laughed, when it was 
all gone, as if his enjoyment of it lasted still. 

Finding him so very friendly and companionable, it was then that I 
asked for the pen and ink and paper, to write to Peggotty. He not only 
brought it immediately, but was good enough to look over me while I 
wrote the letter. When I had finished it, he asked me where I was going 
to school. 

'I said, " Near London," which was all I knew. 

" Oh, my eye ! " he said, looking very low-spirited, " I am sorry for that." 

"Why?" I asked him. 

" Oh, Lord ! " he said, shaking his head, " that 's the school where they 
broke the boy's ribs — two ribs — a little boy he was. I should say he 
was — let me see — how old are you, about ? " 

I told him between eight and nine. 

" That 's just his age," he said. " He was eight years and six months 
old when they broke his first rib ; eight years and eight months old when 
they broke his second, and did for him." 

I could not disguise from myself, or from the waiter, that this was an 



OF DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 51 

uncomfortable coincidence, and enquired how it was done. His answer was 
not cheering to my spirits, for it consisted of two dismal words, " With 
whopping." 

The blowing of the coach-horn in the yard was a seasonable diversion, 
which made me get up and hesitatingly enquire, in the mingled pride and 
diffidence of having a purse (which I took out of my pocket), if there 
were anything to pay. 

" There 's a sheet of letter-paper," he returned. " Did you ever buy a 
sheet of letter-paper ? " 

I could not remember that I ever had. 

"It's dear," he said, " on account of the duty. Threepence. That's 
the way we 're taxed in this country. There 's nothing else, except the 
waiter. Never mind the ink. I lose by that." 

•'What should you — what should I — how much ought I to — what 
would it be right to pay the waiter, if you please ? " I stammered, blushing. 

" If I hadn't a family, and that family hadn't the cowpock," said the 
waiter, " I wouldn't take a sixpence. If I didn't support a aged pairint, 
and a lovely sister," — here the waiter was greatly agitated — " I wouldn't 
take a farthing. If I had a good place, and was treated well here, I should 
beg acceptance of a trifle, instead of taking of it. But I live on broken 
wittles — and I sleep on the coals " — here the waiter burst into tears. 

I was very much concerned for his misfortunes, and felt that any recog- 
nition short of ninepence would be mere brutality and hardness of heart. 
Therefore I gave him one of my three bright shillings, which he received 
with much humility and veneration, and spun up with his thumb, directly 
afterwards, to try the goodness of. 

It was a little disconcerting to me, to find, when I was being helped up 
behind the coach, that I was supposed to have eaten all the dinner without 
any assistance. I discovered this, from overhearing the lady in the bow- 
window, say to the guard, " Take care of that child, George, or he '11 
burst ! " and from observing that the women-servants who were about the 
place came out to look and giggle at me as a young phenomenon. My 
unfortunate friend the waiter, who had quite recovered his spirits, did not 
appear to be disturbed by this, but joined in the general admiration 
without being at all confused. If I had any doubt of him, I suppose this 
half-awakened it ; but I am inclined to believe that with the simple con- 
fidence of a child, and the natural reliance of a child upon superior years 
(qualities I am very sorry any children should prematurely change for 
worldly wisdom), I had no serious mistrust of him on the whole, 
even then. 

I felt it rather hard, I must own, to be made, without deserving it, the 
subject of jokes between the coachman and guard as to the coach drawing 
heavy behind, on account of my sitting there, and as to the greater expe- 
diency of my travelling by waggon. The story of my supposed appetite 
getting wind among the outside passengers, they were merry upon it 
likewise ; and asked me whether L was going to be paid for, at school, as two 
brothers or three, and whether I was contracted for, or went upon the 
regular terms ; with other pleasant questions. But the worst of it 
was, that I knew I should be ashamed to eat anything, when an oppor- 
tunity offered, and that, after a rather light dinner, I should remain hungry 

E 2 



5£ THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

all night — for I had left my cakes behind, at the hotel, in my hurry. My 
apprehensions were realised. When we stopped for supper I couldn't 
muster courage to take any, though I should have liked it very much, but 
sat by the fire and said I didn't want anything. This did not save me 
from more jokes, either ; for a husky- voiced gentleman with a rough face, 
who had been eating out of a sandwich-box nearly all the way, except 
when he had been drinking out of a bottle, said I was like a boa 
constrictor who took enough at one meal to last him a long time ; after 
which, he actually brought a rash out upon himself with boiled beef. 

We had started from Yarmouth at three o'clock in the afternoon, and 
we were due in London about eight next morning. It was Midsummer 
weather, and the evening was very pleasant. When we passed through a 
village, I pictured to myself what the insides of the houses were like, and 
what the inhabitants were about ; and when boys came running after us, 
and got up behind and swung there for a little way, I wondered whether 
their fathers were alive, and whether they were happy at home. I had plenty 
to think of, therefore, besides my mind running continually on the kind of 
place I was going to — which was an awful speculation. Sometimes, I remem- 
ber, I resigned myself to thoughts of home and Peggotty ; and to endeavour- 
ing, in a confused blind way, to recall how I had felt, and what sort of boy 
I used to be, before I bit Mr. Murdstone : which I couldn't satisfy myself 
about by any means, I seemed to have bitten him in such a remote antiquity. 

The night was not so pleasant as the evening, for it got chilly ; and 
being put between two gentlemen (the rough-faced one and another) to 
prevent my tumbling off the coach, I was nearly smothered by their 
falling asleep, and completely blocking me up. They squeezed me so hard 
sometimes, that I could not help crying out, " Oh ! If you please ! " 
— which they didn't like at all, because it woke them. Opposite me was 
an elderly lady in a great fur cloak, who looked in the dark more like a 
haystack than a lady, she was wrapped up to such a degree. This lady 
had a basket with her, and she hadn't known what to do with it, for a 
long time, until she found that on account of my legs being short, it could 
go underneath me. It cramped and hurt me so, that it made me per- 
fectly miserable ; but if I moved in the least, and made a glass that was 
in the basket rattle against something else (as it was sure to do), she gave 
me the cruellest poke with her foot, and said, " Come, don't you fidget. 
Your bones are young enough, I'm sure ! " 

At last the sun rose, and then my companions seemed to sleep easier. 
The difficulties under which they had laboured all night, and which had 
found utterance in the most terrific gasps and snorts, are not to be con- 
ceived. As the sun got higher, then sleep became lighter, and so they 
gradually one by one awoke. I recollect being very much surprised by 
the feint everybody made, then, of not having been to sleep at all, and by 
the uncommon indignation with which every one repelled the charge. I 
labor under the same kind of astonishment to this day, having invariably 
observed that of all human weaknesses, the one to which our common 
nature is the least disposed to confess (I cannot imagine why) is the 
weakness of having gone to sleep in a coach. 

What an amazing place London was to me when I saw it in the distance, 
and how I believed all the adventures of all my favorite heroes to be 
constantly enacting and re-enacting there, and how I vaguely made it out 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 53 

in my own mind to be fuller of wonders and wickedness than all the cities 
of the earth, I need not stop here to relate. We approached it by degrees, 
and got, in due time, to the inn in the Whitechapel district, for which we 
were bound. I forget whether it was the Blue Bull, or the Blue Boar ; 
but I know it was the Blue Something, and that its likeness was painted 
up on the back of the coach. 

The guard's eye lighted on me as he was getting down, and he said at 
the booking-office door : 

" Is there anybody here for a yoongster booked in the name of Murd- 
stone, from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, to be left till called for?" 

Nobody answered. 

" Try Copperfield, if you please, sir," said I, looking helplessly down. 

" Is there anybody here for a yoongster, booked in the name of Murd- 
stone, from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, but owning to the name of Copperfield, 
to be left till called for ?" said the guard. " Come ! Is there anybody?" 

No. There was nobody. I looked anxiously around ; but the enquiry 
made no impression on any of the bystanders, if I except a man in gaiters, 
with one eye, who suggested that they had better put a brass collar round 
my neck, and tie me up in the stable. 

A ladder was brought, and I got down after the lady, who was like a 
haystack : not daring to stir, until her basket was removed. The coach 
was clear of passengers by that time, the luggage was very soon cleared 
out, the horses had been taken out before the luggage, and now the coach 
itself was wheeled and backed off by some hostlers, out of the way. Still, 
nobody appeared, to claim the dusty youngster from Blunderstone, Suffolk. 

More solitary than Bobinson Crusoe, who had nobody to look at him 
and see that he was solitary, I went into the booking-office, and, by invita- 
tion of the clerk on duty, passed behind the counter, and sat down on the 
scale at which they weighed the luggage. Here, as I sat looking at the 
parcels, packages, and books, and inhaling the smell of stables (ever since 
associated with that morning), a procession of most tremendous considera- 
tions began to march through my mind. Supposing nobody should ever 
fetch me, how long would they consent to keep me there ? Would they 
keep me long enough to spend seven shillings ? Should I sleep at night 
in one of those wooden binns with the other luggage, and wash myself at 
the pump in the yard in the morning ; or should I be turned out every 
night, and expected to come again to be left till called for, when the office 
opened next day ? Supposing there was no mistake in the case, and Mr. 
Murdstone had devised this plan to get rid of me, what should I do ? If 
they allowed me to remain there until my seven shillings were spent, I 
couldn't hope to remain there when I began to starve. That would obviously 
be inconvenient and unpleasant to the customers, besides entailing on the 
Blue Whatever-it-was, the risk of funeral expenses. If I started off at 
once, and tried to walk back home, how could I ever find my way, how 
could I ever hope to walk so far, how could I make sure of any one but 
Peggotty, even if I got back ? If I found out the nearest proper authori- 
ties, and offered myself to go for a soldier, or a sailor, I was such a little 
fellow that it was most likely they wouldn't take me in. These thoughts, 
and a hundred other such thoughts, turned me burning hot, and made me 
giddy with apprehension and dismay. I was in the height of my fever 



54* THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

when a man entered and whispered to the clerk, who presently slanted me 
off the scale, and pushed me over to Mm, as if I were weighed, bought, 
delivered, and paid for. 

As I went out of the office, hand in hand with this new acquaintance, 
I stole a look at him. He was a gaunt, sallow young man, with hollow 
cheeks, and a chin almost as black as Mr, Murdstone's ; but there the 
likeness ended, for his whiskers were shaved off, and his hah', instead of 
being glossy, was rusty and dry. He was dressed in a suit of black clothes 
which were rather rusty and dry too, and rather short in the sleeves and 
legs ; and he had a white neck-kerchief on that was not over-clean. I did 
not, and do not, suppose that this neck-kerchief was all the linen he wore, 
but it was all he showed or gave any hint of. 

" You 're the new boy ? " he said. 

" Yes, sir," I said. 

I supposed I was. I didn't know. 

" I 'm one of the masters at Salem House," he said. 

I made him a bow and felt very much overawed. I was so ashamed to 
allude to a common-place thing like my box, to a scholar and a master at 
Salem House, that we had gone some little distance from the yard before 
I had the hardihood to mention it. We turned back, on my humbly 
insinuating that it might be useful to me hereafter ; and he told the clerk 
that the carrier had instructions to call for it at noon. 

" If you please, sir," I said, when we had accomplished about the same 
distance as before, " is it far ? " 

" It 's down by Blackheath," he said. 

" Is that far, sir ? " I diffidently asked. 

" It 's a good step," he said. " We shall go by the stage-coach. It 's 
about six miles." 

I was so faint and tired, that the idea of holding out for six miles more, 
was too much for me. I took heart to tell him that I had had nothing all 
night, and that if he would allow me to buy something to eat, I should be 
very much obliged to him. He appeared surprised at this — I see him stop 
and look at me now — and after considering for a few moments, said he 
wanted to call on an old person who lived not far off, and that the best 
way would be for me to buy some bread, or whatever I liked best that was 
wholesome, and make my breakfast at her house, where we could get 
some milk. 

Accordingly we looked in at a baker's window, and after I had made a 
series of proposals to buy everything that was bilious in the shop, and he 
had rejected them one by one, we decided in favour of a nice little loaf of 
brown bread, which cost me threepence. Then, at a grocer's shop, we 
bought an egg and a slice of streaky bacon ; which still left what I thought 
a good deal of change, out of the second of the bright shillings, and made 
me consider London a very cheap place. These provisions laid in, we went 
on through a great noise and uproar that confused my weary head beyond 
description, and over a bridge which, no doubt, was London Bridge 
(indeed I think he told me so, but I was half asleep), until we came to the 
poor person's house, which was a part of some alms-houses, as I knew by 
their look, and by an inscription on a stone over the gate, which said they 
were established for twenty-five poor women. 




Q/njf /^u^^ y^a^^^. 



OF DAVID COPPEBPIELD. 55 

The Master at Salem House lifted the latch of one of a number of little 
black doors that were all alike, and had each a little diamond-paned 
window on one side, and another little diamond-paned window above ; 
and we went into the little house of one of these poor old women, who was 
blowing a fire to make a little saucepan boil. On seeing the master enter, the 
old woman stopped with the bellows on her knee, and said something that 
I thought sounded like "My Charley ! " but on seeing me come in too, 
she got up, and rubbing her hands made a confused sort of half curtsey. 

" Can you cook this young gentleman's breakfast for him, if you please? " 
said the Master at Salem House. 

" Can I?" said the old woman. " Yes can I, sure !" 

" How 's Mrs. Eibbitson to-day ?" said the Master, looking at another 
old woman in a large chair by the fire, who was such a bundle of clothes 
that I feel grateful to this hour for not having sat upon her by mistake. 

" Ah, she 's poorly," said the first old woman. " It 's one of her 
bad days. If the fire was to go out, through any accident, I verily believe 
she 'd go out too, and never come to life again." 

As they looked at her, I looked at her also. Although it was a warm 
day, she seemed to think of nothing but the fire. I fancied she was jealous 
even of the saucepan on it ; and I have reason to know that she took its 
impressment into the service of boiling my egg and broiling my bacon, in 
dudgeon; for I saw her, with my own discomfited eyes, shake her fist at me 
once, when those culinary operations were going on, and no one else was 
looking. The sun streamed in at the little window, but she sat with her 
own back and the back of the large chair towards it, screening the fire as if 
she were sedulously keeping it warm, instead of it keeping her warm, and 
watching it in a most distrustful manner. The completion of the prepara- 
tions for my breakfast, by relieving the fire, gave her such extreme joy that 
she laughed aloud — and a very unmelodious laugh she had, I must say. 

I sat down to my brown loaf, my egg, and my rasher of bacon, with a 
bason of milk besides, and made a most delicious meal. While I was yet 
in the full enjoyment of it, the old woman of the house said to the Master : 

" Have you got your flute with you?" 

" Yes," he returned. 

" Have a blow at it," said the old woman, coaxingly. "Do !" 

The Master, upon this, put his hand underneath the skirts of his coat, 
and brought out his flute in three pieces, which he screwed together, and 
began immediately to play. My impression is, after many years of con- 
sideration, that there never can have been anybody in the world who 
played worse. He made the most dismal sounds I have ever heard pro- 
duced by any means, natural or artificial. I don't know what the tunes 
were — if there were such things in the performance at all, which I doubt 
— but the influence of the strain upon me was, first, to make me think of 
all my sorrows until I could hardly keep my tears back ; then to take 
away my appetite ; and lastly to make me so sleepy that I couldn't keep 
my eyes open. They begin to close again, and I begin to nod, as the 
recollection rises fresh upon me. Once more the little room with its 
open corner cupboard, and its square-backed chairs, and its angular little 
staircase leading to the room above, and its three peacock's feathers dis- 
played over the mantelpiece — I remember wondering when I first wcni in. 



50 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

what that peacock would have thought if he had known what his finery 
was doomed to come to — fades from before me, and I nod, and sleep. 
The flute becomes inaudible, the wheels of the coach are heard instead, 
and I am on my journey. The coach jolts, I wake with a start, and the 
flute has come back again, and the Master at Salem House is sitting with 
his legs crossed, playing it dolefully, while the old woman of the house 
looks on delighted. She fades in her turn, and he fades, and all fades, 
and there is no flute, no Master, no Salem House, no David Copperfield, 
no anything but heavy sleep. 

I dreamed, I thought, that once while he was blowing into this dismal 
flute, the old woman of the house, who had gone nearer and nearer to him 
in her ecstatic admiration, leaned over the back of his chair and gave him 
an affectionate squeeze round the neck, which stopped his playing for a 
moment. I was in the middle state between sleeping and waking, either 
then or immediately afterwards ; for, as he resumed — it was a real fact 
that he had stopped playing — I saw and heard the same old woman ask 
Mrs. Fibbitson if it wasn't delicious (meaning the flute), to which Mrs. 
Fibbitson replied, "Ay, ay ! Yes ! " and nodded at the fire: to which, I 
am persuaded, she gave the credit of the whole performance. 

When I seemed to have been dozing a long while, the Master at Salem 
House unscrewed his flute into the three pieces, put them up as before, 
and took me away. We found the coach very near at hand, and got upon 
the roof; but I was so dead sleepy, that Avhen we stopped on the road to 
take up somebody else, they put me inside where there were no passengers, 
and where I slept profoundly, until I found the coach going at a footpace 
up a steep hill among green leaves. Presently, it stopped, and had come 
to its destination. 

A short walk brought us — I mean the Master and me — to Salem House, 
which was enclosed with a high brick wall, and looked very dull. Over a 
door in this wall was a board with Salem House upon it ; and through 
a grating in this door Ave were surveyed when we rang the bell by a 
surly face, which I found, on the door being opened, belonged to a stout 
man with a bull-neck, a wooden leg, overhanging temples, and his hair cut 
close all round his head. 

" The new boy," said the Master. 

The man with the wooden leg eyed me all over — it didn't take long, 
for there was not much of me — and locked the gate behind us, and took 
out the key. We were going up to the house, among some dark heavy 
trees, when he called after my conductor. 

" Hallo ! " 

We looked back, and he was standing at the door of a little lodge, where 
he lived, with a pair of boots in his hand. 

" Here ! The cobbler 's been," he said, " since you 've been out, 
Mr. Mell, and he says he can't mend 'em any more. He says there an't 
a bit of the original boot left, and he wonders you expect it." 

With these words he threw the boots towards Mr. Mell, who went back 
a few paces to pick them up, and looked at them (very disconsolately, 
I was afraid), as we went on together. I observed then, for the first 
time, that the boots he had on were a good deal the worse for wear, and 
that his stocking was just breaking out in one place, like a bud. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 57 

Salem House was a square brick building with wings ; of a bare and 
unfurnished appearance. All about it was so very quiet, that I said to 
Mr. Mell I supposed the boys were out ; but he seemed surprised at my not 
knowing that it was holiday-time. That all the boys were at their several 
homes. That Mr. Creakle, the proprietor, was down by the sea-side with 
Mrs. and Miss Creakle ; and that I was sent in holiday-time as a punish- 
ment for my misdoing, all of which he explained to me as we went along. 

I gazed upon the schoolroom into which he took me, as the most 
forlorn and desolate place I had ever seen. I see it now. A long room 
with three long rows of desks, and six of forms, and bristling all round 
with pegs for hats and slates. Scraps of old copybooks and exercises, 
litter the dirty floor. Some silkworms' houses, made of the same materials, 
are scattered over the desks. Two miserable little white mice, left behind 
by their owner, are running up and down in a fusty castle made of paste- 
board and wire, looking in all the corners with their red eyes for anything 
to eat. A bird, in a cage a very little bigger than himself, makes a mournful 
rattle now and then in hopping on his perch, two inches high, or dropping 
from it ; but neither sings nor chirps. There is a strange unwholesome 
smell upon the room, like mildewed corduroys, sweet apples wanting air, 
and rotten books. There could not well be more ink splashed about it, if 
it had been roofless from its first construction, and the skies had rained, 
snowed, hailed, and blown ink through the varying seasons of the year. 

Mr. Mell having left me while he took his irreparable boots up-stairs, I 
went softly to the upper end of the room, observing all this as I crept 
along. Suddenly I came upon a pasteboard placard, beautifully written, 
which was lying on the desk, and bore these words — " Take care of 1dm. 
He bites." 

I got upon the desk immediately, apprehensive of at least a great dog 
underneath. But, though I looked all round with anxious eyes, I could 
see nothing of him. I was still engaged in peering about, when Mr. Mell 
came back, and asked me what I did up there. 

" I beg your pardon, sir," says I, "if you please, I'm looking for the 
dog." 

" Dog ? " says he. " What dog ? " 

"Isn't it a dog, sir?" 

" Isn *i what a dog ? " 

" That *s to be taken care of, sir ; that bites." 

" No, Copperfield," says he gravely, " that 's not a dog. That 's a boy. 
My instructions are, Copperfield, to put this placard on your back. I am 
sorry to make such a beginning with you, but I must do it." 

With that, he took me down, and tied the placard, which was neatly 
constructed for the purpose, on my shoulders like a knapsack ; and 
wherever I went, afterwards, I had the consolation of carrying it. 

What I suffered from that placard, nobody can imagine. Whether 
it was possible for people to see me or not, I always fancied that 
somebody was reading it. It was no relief to turn round and find 
nobody ; for wherever my back was, there I imagined somebody always 
to be. That cruel man with the wooden leg, aggravated my sufferings. 
He was in authority ; and if he ever saw me leaning against a tree, 
or a wall, or the house, he roared out from his lodge-door in a 



58 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

stupendous voice, "Hallo, you sir' You Copperfield! Show that 
badge conspicuous, or I'll report you!" The playground was a 
bare gravelled yard, open to all the back of the house and the offices ; 
and I knew that tlie servants read it, and the butcher read it, and 
the baker read it; that everybody, in a word, who came backwards 
and forwards to the house, of a morning when I was ordered to walk 
there, read that I was to be taken care of, for I bit. I recollect that I posi- 
tively began to have a dread of myself, as a kind of wild boy who did bite. 

There was an old door in this playground, on which the boys had 
a custom of carving their names. It was completely covered with 
such, inscriptions. In my dread of the end of the vacation and 
their coming back, I could not read a boy's name, without enquiring 
in what tone and with what emphasis lie would read, " Take care 
of him. He bites." There was one boy — a certain J. Steerforth — 
who cut his name very deep and very often, who, I conceived, would 
read it in a rather strong voice, and afterwards pull my hair. There 
was another boy, one Tommy Tradclles, who I dreaded woidd make game 
of it, and pretend to be dreadfully frightened of me. There was a third, 
George Demple, who I fancied would sing it. I have looked, a little 
shrinking creature, at that door, until the owners of all the names — there 
were flve-and-forty of them in the school then, Mr. Mell said — seemed to 
send me to Coventry by general acclamation, and to cry out, each in his 
own way, " Take care of him. He bites ! " 

It was the same with the places at the desks and forms. It was the 
same with the groves of deserted bedsteads I peeped at, on my way to, 
and when I was in, my own bed. I remember dreaming night after night, 
of being with my mother as she used to be, or of going to a party at 
Mr. Peggotty's, or of travelling outside the stage-coach, or of dining again 
with my unfortunate friend the waiter, and in all these circumstances 
making people scream and stare, by the unhappy disclosure that I had 
nothing on but my little night-shirt, and that placard. 

In the monotony of my life, and in my constant apprehension of the 
reopening of the school, it was such an insupportable affliction ! I had 
long tasks every day to do with Mr. Mell \ but I did them, there being no 
Mr. and Miss Murdstone here, and got through them without disgrace. 
Before, and after them, I walked about — supervised, as I have mentioned, 
by the man with the wooden leg. How vividly I call to mind the damp 
about the house, the green cracked flagstones in the court, an old leaky 
water-butt, and the discolored trunks of some of the grim trees, which 
seemed to have dripped more in the rain than other trees, and to 
have blown less in the sun I At one we dined, Mr. Mell and I, at the 
upper end of a long bare dining-room, full of deal tables, and smelling of 
fat. Then, we had more tasks until tea, which Mr. Mell drank out 
of a blue teacup, and I out of a tin pot. All day long, and until seven 
or eight in the evening, Mr. Mell, at his own detached desk in the 
schoolroom, worked hard with pen, ink, ruler, books, and writing-paper, 
making out the bills (as I found) for last half-year. When he had put 
up his things for the night he took out his flute, and blew at it, 
until I almost thought he would gradually blow his whole being into 
the large hole at the top, and ooze away at the keys. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 59 

I picture niy small self in the dimly-lighted rooms, sitting with my 
head upon my hand, listening to the doleful performance of Mr. Mell, and 
conning to-morrow's lessons. I picture myself with my books shut up, 
still listening to the doleful performance of Mr. Mell, and listening through 
it to what used to be at home, and to the blowing of the wind on 
Yarmouth flats, and feeling very sad and solitary. I picture myself 
going up to bed, among the unused rooms, and sitting on my bed-side 
crying for a comfortable word from Peggotty. I picture myself coming 
down stairs in the morning, and looking through a long ghastly gash 
of a staircase-window, at the school-bell hanging on the top of an 
outhouse, with a weathercock above it ; and dreading the time when it 
shall ring J. Steerforth and the rest to work : which is only second, in my 
foreboding apprehensions, to the time when the man with the wooden leg 
shall unlock the rusty gate to give admission to the awful Mr. Creakle. 
I cannot think I was a very dangerous character in any of these aspects, 
but in all of them I carried the same warning on my back. 

Mr. Mell never said much to me, but he was never harsh to me. I 
suppose we were company to each other, without talking. I forgot to 
mention that he would talk to himself sometimes, and grin, and clench his 
list, and grind his teeth, and pull his hair in an unaccountable manner. 
But he had these peculiarities : and at first they frightened me, though I 
soon 2-ot used to them. 



CHAPTER VI. 

I ENLARGE MY CIRCLE OF ACQUAINTANCE. 

I had led this life about a month, when the man with the wooden leg- 
began to stump about with a mop and a bucket of water, from which I 
inferred that preparations were making to receive Mr. Creakle and the 
boys. I was not mistaken • for the mop came into the schoolroom before 
long, and turned out Mr. Mell and me, who lived where we could, and 
got on how we could, for some days, during which we were always in 
the way of two or three young women, who had rarely shown themselves 
before, and were so continually in the midst of dust that I sneezed almost 
as much as if Salem House had been a great snuff-box. 

One day I was informed by Mr. Mell, that Mr. Creakle would be home 
that evening. In the evening, after tea, I heard that he was come. Before 
bed-time, I was fetched by the man with the wooden leg to appear 
before him. 

Mr. Creakle's part of the house was a good deal moroyjcom for table than 
ours, and he had a snug bit of garden that looked pleasant after the dusty 
playground, which was such a desert in miniature, that I thought no one 
but a camel, or a dromedary, could have; felt at home in it. It seemed to 
me a bold thing even to take notice that the passage looked comfortable, 
as I Avent on my way, trembling, to Mr. Creakle's presence : which ho 



60 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

abashed me, when I was ushered into it, that I hardly saw Mrs. Creakle 
or Miss Creakle (who were both there, in the parlor), or anything but 
Mr. Creakle, a stout gentleman with a bunch of watch-chain and seals, in 
an arm-chair, with a tumbler and bottle beside him. 

" So ! " said Mr. Creakle. " This is the young gentleman whose teeth 
are to be filed ! Turn him round." 

The wooden-legged man turned me about so as to exhibit the placard ; 
and having afforded time for a full survey of it, turned me about again, 
with my face to Mr. Creakle, and posted himself at Mr. Creakle's side. 
Mr. Creakle's face was fiery, and his eyes were small, and deep in his 
head ; he had thick veins in his forehead, a little nose, and a large chin. 
He was bald on the top of his head ; and had some thin wet-looking hair 
that was just turning grey, brushed across each temple, so that the two 
sides interlaced on his forehead. But the circumstance about him which 
impressed me most, was, that he had no voice, but spoke in a whisper. 
The exertion this cost him, or the consciousness of talking in that feeble 
way, made his angry face so much more angry, and his thick veins so 
much thicker, when he spoke, that I am not surprised, on looking back, 
at this peculiarity striking me as his chief one. 

" Now, " said Mr. Creakle. " What 's the report of this boy ? " 

" There 's nothing against him yet, " returned the man with the wooden 
leg. " There has been no opportunity. " 

I thought Mr. Creakle was disappointed. I thought Mrs. and Miss 
Creakle (at whom I now glanced for the first time, and who were, both, 
thin and quiet) were not disappointed. 

" Come here, sir ! " said Mr. Creakle, beckoning to me. 

" Come here ! " said the man with the wooden leg, repeating the 
gesture. 

" I have the happiness of knowing your father-in-law," whispered 
Mr. Creakle, taking me by the ear ; " and a worthy man he is, and a 
man of a strong character. He knows me, and I know him. Do you 
know me ? Hey ? " said Mr. Creakle, pinching my ear with ferocious 
playfulness. 

'•'Not yet, sir," I said, flinching with the pain. 

" Not yet ? Hey ? " repeated Mr. Creakle. "But you will soon. Hey ? " 

" You will soon. Hey ? " repeated the man with the wooden leg. I 
afterwards found that he generally acted, with his strong voice, as 
Mr. Creakle's interpreter to the boys. 

I was very much frightened, and said, I hoped so, if he pleased. I felt, 
all this while, as if my ear were blazing ; he pinched it so hard. 

" I '11 tell you what I am," whispered Mr. Creakle, letting it go at last, 
with a screw at parting that brought the water into my eyes. " I 'm a 
Tartar." 

" A Tartar," said the man with the wooden leg. 

" When I say J '11 do a thing, I do it," said Mr. Creakle; " and when 
I say I will have a thing done, I will have it done." 

" — Will have a thing done, I will have it done," repeated the man 
with the wooden leg. 

"lam a determined character," said Mr. Creakle. " That 's what I 
am. I do my duty. That 's what / do. My flesh and blood " — he 



OP DAVID COPPEEJIELD. 61 

looked at Mrs. Creakle as he said this — " when it rises against me, is not 
my flesh and blood. I discard it. Has that fellow," to the man with 
the wooden leg, " been here again ? " 

" No," was the answer. 

" No," said Mr. Creakle. " He knows better. He knows me. Let 
him keep away. I say let him keep away," said Mr. Creakle, striking his 
hand upon the table, and looking at Mrs. Creakle, " for he knows me. 
Now you have begun to know me too, my young friend, and you may go. 
Take him away." 

I was very glad to be ordered away, for Mrs. and Miss Creakle were 
both wiping their eyes, and I felt as uncomfortable for them, as I did 
for myself. But I had a petition on my mind which concerned me so 
nearly, that I couldn 't help saying, though I wondered at my own courage : 

" If you please, sir " 

Mr. Creakle whispered, " Hah ? What 's this ? " and bent his eyes 
upon me, as if he would have burnt me up with them. 

" If you please, sir," I faltered, " if I might be allowed (I am very 
sorry indeed, sir, for what I did) to take this writing off, before the boys 
come back " 

Whether Mr Creakle was in earnest, or whether he only did it to 
frighten me I don't know, but he made a burst out of his chair, before 
Avhich I precipitately retreated, without waiting for the escort of the 
man with the wooden leg, and never once stopped until I reached 
my own bedroom, where, finding I was not pursued, I went to bed, as 
it was time, and lay quaking, for a couple of hours. 

Next morning Mr. Sharp came back. Mr. Sharp was the first master, 
and superior to Mr. Mell. Mr. Mell took his meals with the boys, but 
Mr. Sharp dined and supped at Mr. Creakle's table. He was a limp, 
delicate-looking gentleman, I thought, with a good deal of nose, and a way 
of carrying his head on one side, as if it were a little too heavy for 
him. His hair was very smooth and wavy ; but I was informed by the 
very first boy who came back that it was a wig (a second-hand one lie 
said), and that Mr. Sharp went out every Saturday afternoon to get it 
curled. 

It was no other than Tommy Traddles who gave me this piece of 
intelligence. He was the first boy who returned. He introduced himself 
by informing me that I should find his name on the right-hand corner of 
the gate, over the top bolt ; upon that I said, " Traddles ? " to which 
he replied, "The same," and then he asked me for a full account of myself 
and family. 

It was a happy circumstance for me that Traddles came back first. He 
enjoyed my placard so much, that he saved me from the embarrassment of 
either disclosure or concealment, by presenting me to every other boy who 
came back, great or small, immediately on his arrival, in this form of introduc- 
tion, " Look here ! Here 's a game ! " Happily, too, the greater part of the 
boys came back low-spirited, and were not so boisterous at my expense as 
I had expected. Some of them certainly did dance about me like wild 
Indians, and the greater part could not resist the temptation of pretending 
that I was a dog, and patting and smoothing me lest I should bite, and 
saving, " Lie down, sir ! " and calling me Towzer. This was naturally 



62 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

confusing, among s0 many strangers, and cost me some tears, but on the 
whole it was much better than I had anticipated. 

I was not considered as being formally received into the school, however, 
until J. Steerforth arrived. Before this boy, who was reputed to be a 
great scholar, and was very good-looking, and at least half-a-dozen years 
my senior, I was carried as before a magistrate. He enquired, under a shed 
in the playground, into the particulars of my punishment, and was pleased 
to express his opinion that it was "a jolly shame;" for which I became 
bound to him ever afterwards. 

" What money have you got, Copperfield ? " he said, walking aside with 
me when he had disposed of my affair in these terms. 

I told him seven shillings. 

" You had better give it to me to take care of," he said. " At least, 
you can if you like. You needn't if you don't like." 

I hastened to comply with his friendly suggestion, and opening 
Peggotty's purse, turned it upside down into his hand. 

" Do you want to spend anything now ? " he asked me. 

"No/ thank you," I replied. 

" You can if you like, you know," said Steerforth. " Say the word." 

" No, thank you, sir/' I repeated. 

" Perhaps you 'd like to spend a couple of shillings or so, in a bottle of 
currant wine by-and-by, up in the bedroom?" said Steerforth. "You 
belong to my bedroom, I find." 

It certainly had not occurred to me before, but I said, Yes, I should 
like that. 

" Very good," said Steerforth. " You '11 be glad to spend another 
shilling or so, in almond cakes, I dare say ? " 

I said, Yes, I should like that, too. 

" And another shilling or so in biscuits, and another in fruit, eh?" 
said Steerforth. " I say, young Copperfield, you 're going it ! " 

I smiled because he smiled, but I was a little troubled in my mind, too. 

" Well ! " said Steerforth. " We must make it stretch as far as we 
can ; that 's all. I '11 do the best in my power for you. I can go out 
when I like, and I '11 smuggle the prog in." With these words he put the 
money in his pocket, and kindly told me not to make myself uneasy ; he 
would take care it should be all right. 

He was as good as his word, if that were all right which I had a secret 
misgiving was nearly all wrong — for I feared it was a waste of my mother's 
two half-crowns — though 1 had preserved the piece of paper they were 
wrapped in : which was a precious saving. When we went up-stairs 
to bed, he produced the whole seven shillings' worth, and laid it out on 
my bed in the moonlight, saying : 

" There you are, young Copperfield, and a royal spread you 've got ! " 

I couldn't think of doing the honors of the feast, at my time of life, 
while he was by ; my hand shook at the very thought of it. I begged 
him to do me the favor of presiding ; and my request being seconded by 
the other boys who were in that room, he acceded to it, and sat upon my 
pillow, handing round the viands — with perfect fairness, I must say — and 
dispensing the currant wine in a little glass without a foot, which was his 
own property. As to me, I sat on his left hand, and the rest were grouped 
about us. on the nearest beds and on the floor. 



OP DAVID COPPERPIELD. bd 

How well I recollect our sitting there, talking in whispers ; or their 
talking, and my respectfully listening, I ought rather to say ; the moon- 
light falling a little way into the room, through the window, painting a 
pale window on the floor, and the greater part of us in shadow, except 
when Steerforth dipped a match into a phosphorous-box, when he wanted 
to look for anything on the board, and shed a blue glare over us that was 
gone directly ! A certain mysterious feeling, consequent on the darkness, 
the secresy of the revel, and the whisper in which everything was said, 
steals over me again, and I listen to all they tell me with a vague feeling 
of solemnity and awe, which makes me glad that they are all so near, and 
frightens me (though I feign to laugh) when Traddles pretends to see 
a ghost in the corner. 

I heard all kinds of things about the school and all belonging to it. I 
heard that Mr. Creakle had not preferred his claim to being a Tartar 
without reason ; that he was the sternest and most severe of masters ; 
that he laid about him, right and left, every day of his life, charging in 
among the boys like a trooper, and slashing away, unmercifully. That he 
knew nothing himself, but the art of slashing, being more ignorant (J. 
Steerforth said) than the lowest boy in the school ; that he had been, 
a good many years ago, a small hop-dealer in the Borough, and had taken 
to the schooling business after being bankrupt in hops, and making away 
with Mrs. Creakle's money. With a good deal more of that sort, which 
I wondered how they knew. 

I heard that the man with, the wooden leg, whose name was Tungay, 
was an obstinate barbarian who had formerly assisted in the hop business, 
but had come into the scholastic line with Mr. Creakle, in consequence, 
as was supposed among the boys, of his having broken his leg in Mr. 
Creakle's service, and having done a deal of dishonest work for him, and 
knowing his secrets. I heard that with the single exception of Mr. 
Creakle, Tungay considered the whole establishment, masters and boys, 
as his natural enemies, and that the only delight of his life was to be sour 
and malicious. I heard that Mr. Creakle had a son, who had not been 
Tungay's Mend, and who, assisting in the school, had once held some 
remonstrance with his father on an occasion when its discipline was very 
cruelly exercised, and was supposed, besides, to have protested against 
his father's usage of his mother. I heard that Mr. Creakle had turned 
him out of doors, in consequence ; and that Mrs. and Miss Creakle had 
been in a sad way, ever since. 

But the greatest wonder that I heard of Mr. Creakle was, there being 
one boy in the school on whom he never ventured to lay a hand, and that 
boy being J. Steerforth. Steerforth himself confirmed this when it was 
stated, and said that he should like to begin to see him do it. On being- 
asked by a mild boy (not me) how he would proceed if he did begin to see 
him do it, he dipped a match into his phosphorous-box on purpose to shed a 
glare over his reply, and said he would commence by knocking him down 
with a blow on the forehead from the seven-and-sixpenny ink-bottle that was 
always on the mantelpiece. We sat in the dark for some time, breathless. 

I heard that Mr. Sharp and Mr. Mell were both supposed to be 
wretchedly paid ; and that when there was hot and cold meat for dinner at 
Mr. Creakle's table, Mr. Sharp was always expected to say he preferred 



64 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

cold; which was again corroborated by J. Steerforth, the only parlor- 
boarder. I heard that Mr. Sharp's wig didn't fit him ; and that he 
needn't be so " bounceable" — somebody else said " bumptious " — about it, 
because his own red hair was very plainly to be seen behind. 

I heard that one boy, who was a coal-merchant's son, came as a set-off 
against the coal-bill, and was called on that account "Exchange or 
Barter" — a name selected from the arithmetic-book as expressing this 
arrangement. I heard that the table-beer was a robbery of parents, and 
the pudding an imposition. I heard that Miss Creakle was regarded by the 
school in general as being in love with Steerforth ; and I am sure, as I sat 
in the dark, thinking of his nice voice, and his fine face, and his easy 
manner, and his curling hair, I thought it very likely. I heard that 
Mr. Mell was not a bad sort of fellow, but hadn't a sixpence to bless 
himself with ; and that there was no doubt that old Mrs. Mell, his mother, 
was as poor as Job. I thought of my breakfast then, and what had 
sounded like " My Charley ! " but I was, I am glad to remember, as mute 
as a mouse about it. 

The hearing of all this, and a good deal more, outlasted the banquet 
some time. The greater part of the guests had gone to bed as soon as 
the eating and drinking were over ; and we, who had remained whisper- 
ing and listening half undressed, at last betook ourselves to bed, too. 

" Good night, young Copperfield," said Steerforth, " I '11 take care 
of you." 

" You 're very kind," I gratefully returned. " I am very much obliged 
to you." 

" You haven't got a sister, have you ? " said Steerforth, yawning. 

" No," I answered. 

"That's a pity," said Steerforth. "If you had had one, I should 
think she would have been a pretty, timid, little, bright-eyed sort of girl. 
I should have liked to know her. Good night, young Copperfield." 

" Good night, sir," I replied. 

I thought of him very much after I went to bed, and raised myself, I 
recollect, to look at him where he lay in the moonlight, with his handsome 
face turned up, and his head reclining easily on his arm. He was a 
person of great power in my eyes ; that was of course the reason of my 
mind running on him. No veiled future dimly glanced upon him in the 
moonbeams. There was no shadowy picture of his footsteps, in the 
garden that I dreamed of walking in all night. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 05 



CHAPTEB VIL 

MY " FIRST HALF" AT SALEM HOUSE. 

School began in earnest next day. A profound impression was made 
upon me, I remember, by the roar of voices in the schoolroom suddenly 
becoming hushed as death when Mr. Creakle entered after breakfast, and 
stood in the doorway looking round upon us like a giant in a story-book 
surveying his captives. 

Tungay stood at Mr. Creakle's elbow. He had no occasion, I thought, 
to cry out " Silence ! " so ferociously, for the boys were all struck speech- 
less and motionless. 

Mr. Creakle was seen to speak, and Tungay was heard, to this effect. 

" Now, boys, this is a new half. Take care what you 're about, in this 
new half. Come fresh up to the lessons, I advise you, for I come fresh up 
to the punishment. I won't flinch. It will be of no use your rubbing 
yourselves ; you won't rub the marks out that I shall give you. Now 
get to work, every boy ! " 

When this dreadful exordium was over, and Tungay had stumped out 
again, Mr. Creakle came to where I sat, and told me that if I were famous 
for biting, he was famous for biting, too. He then showed me the cane, 
and asked me what I thought of that, for a tooth ? Was it a sharp tooth, 
hey ? Was it a double tooth, hey ? Had it a deep prong, hey ? Did 
it bite, hey ? Did it bite ? At every question he gave me a fleshy cut 
with it that made me writhe ; so I was very soon made free of Salem 
House (as Steerforth said), and very soon in tears also. 

Not that I mean to say these were special marks of distinction, which 
only I received. On the contrary, a large majority of the boys (especially 
the smaller ones) were visited with similar instances of notice, as 
Mr. Creakle made the round of the schoolroom. Half the establishment 
was writhing and crying, before the day's work began ; and how much of it 
had writhed and cried before the day's work was over, I am really afraid 
to recollect, lest I should seem to exaggerate. 

I should think there never can have been a man who enjoyed his pro- 
fession more than Mr. Creakle did. He had a delight in cutting at the 
boys, which was like the satisfaction of a craving appetite. I am confident 
that he couldn't resist a chubby boy, especially ; that there was a fascina- 
tion in such a subject, which made him restless in his mind, until he had 
scored and marked him for the day. I was chubby myself, and ought to 
know. I am sure when I think of the fellow now, my blood rises against 
him with the disinterested indignation I should feel if I could have known 
all about him without having ever been in his power ; but it rises hotly, 
because I know him to have been an incapable brute, who had no more 
right to be possessed of the great trust he held, than to be Lord High 
Admiral, or Commander-in-chief : in either of which capacities, it is pro- 
bable that he would have done infinitely less mischief. 

Miserable little propitiators of a remorseless Idol, how abject we were 

F 



66 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

to him ! what a launch in life I think it now, on looking back, to be so 
mean and servile to a man of such parts and pretensions ! 

Here I sit at the desk again, watching his eye — humbly watching his 
eye, as he rules a cyphering-book for another victim whose hands have 
just been flattened by that identical ruler, and who is trying to wipe the 
sting out with a pocket-handkerchief. I have plenty to do. I don't 
watch his eye in idleness, but because I am morbidly attracted to it, in a 
dread desire to know what he will do next, and whether it will be my 
turn to suffer, or somebody else's. A lane of small boys beyond me, with 
the same interest in his eye, watch it too. I think he knows it, though he 
pretends he don't. He makes dreadful mouths as he rules the cyphering- 
book ; and now he throws his eye sideways down our lane, and we all 
droop over our books and tremble. A moment afterwards we are again 
eyeing him. An unhappy culprit, found guilty of imperfect exercise, 
approaches at his command. The culprit falters excuses, and professes a 
determination to do better to-morrow. Mr. Creakle cuts a joke before he 
beats him, and we laugh at it, — miserable little dogs, we laugh, with our 
visages as white as ashes, and our hearts sinking into our boots. 

Here I sit at the desk again, on a drowsy summer afternoon. A buzz 
and hum go up around me, as if the boys were so many blue-bottles. A cloggy 
sensation of the lukewarm fat of meat is upon me (we dined an hour or 
two ago), and my head is as heavy as so much lead. I would give the 
world to go to sleep. I sit with my eye on Mr. Creakle, blinking at him 
like a young owl; when sleep overpowers me for a minute, he still looms 
through my slumber, ruling those cyphering-books ; until he softly comes 
behind me and wakes me to plainer perception of him, with a red ridge 
across my back. 

Here I am in the playground, with my eye still fascinated by him, 
though I can't see him. The window at a little distance from which I 
know he is having his dinner, stands for him, and I eye that instead. If 
he shows his face near it, mine assumes an imploring and submissive 
expression. If he looks out through the glass, the boldest boy (Steerforth 
excepted) stops in the middle of a shout or yell, and becomes contemplative. 
One day, Traddles (the most unfortunate boy in the world) breaks that 
window accidentally, with a ball. I shudder at this moment with the 
tremendous sensation of seeing it done, and feeling that the ball has 
bounded on to Mr. Creakle's sacred head. 

Poor Traddles ! In a tight sky-blue suit that made his arms and legs 
like German sausages, or roly-poly puddings, he was the merriest and 
most miserable of all the boys. He was always being caned' — I think he 
was caned every day that half-year, except one holiday Monday when he 
was only ruler'd on both hands — and was always going to write to his uncle 
about it, and never did. After laying his head on the desk for a little 
while, he would cheer up, somehow, begin to laugh again, and draw 
skeletons all over his slate, before his eyes were dry. I used at first to 
wonder what comfort Traddles found in drawing skeletons ; and for some 
time looked upon him as a sort of hermit, who reminded himself by those 
symbols of mortality that caning couldn't last for ever. But I believe he 
only did it because they were easy, and didn't want any features. 

He was very honorable, Traddles was; and held it as a solemn duty in 



OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 67 

the boys to stand by one another. He suffered for this on several 
occasions; and particularly once, when Steerforth laughed in church, and 
the Beadle thought it was Traddles, and took him out. I see him now, 
going away in custody, despised by the congregation. He never said who 
was the real offender, though he smarted for it next day, and was 
imprisoned so many hours that he came forth with a whole churchyard-full 
of skeletons swarming all over his Latin Dictionary. But he had his 
reward. Steerforth said there was nothing of the sneak in Traddles, and 
we all felt that to be the highest praise. For my part, I could have gone 
through a good deal (though I was much less brave than Traddles, and 
nothing like so old) to have won such a recompense. 

To see Steerforth walk to church before us, arm-in-arm with Miss 
Creakle, was one of the great sights of my life. I didn't think Miss 
Creakle equal to little Em'ly in point of beauty, and I didn't love her 
(I didn't dare) ; but I thought her a young lady of extraordinary attractions, 
and in point of gentility not to be surpassed. When Steerforth, in white 
trousers, carried her parasol for her, I felt proud to know him; and believed 
that she could not choose but adore him with all her heart. Mr. Sharp 
and Mr. Mell were both notable personages in my eyes ; but Steerforth 
was to them what the sun was to two stars. 

Steerforth continued his protection of me, and proved a very useful 
friend ; since nobody dared to annoy one whom he honored with his coun- 
tenance. He couldn't — or at all events, he didn't — defend me from Mr. 
Creakle, who was very severe with me ; but whenever I had been treated 
worse than usual, he always told me that I wanted a little of his pluck, and 
that he wouldn't have stood it himself; which I felt he intended for encou- 
ragement, and considered to be very kind of him. There was one advan- 
tage, and only one that I know of, in Mr. Creakle's severity. He found 
my placard in his way, when he came up or down behind the form on 
which I sat, and wanted to make a cut at me in passing ; for this reason 
it was soon taken off, and I saw it no more. 

An accidental circumstance cemented the intimacy between Steerforth 
and me, in a manner that inspired me with great pride and satisfaction, 
though it sometimes led to inconvenience. It happened on one occasion, 
when he was doing me the honor of talking to me in the playground, 
that I hazarded the observation that something or somebody — I forget 
what now — was like something or somebody in Peregrine Pickle. He 
said nothing at the time; but when I was going to bed at night, asked me 
if I had got that book. 

I told him no, and explained how it was that I had read it, and all 
those other books of which I have made mention. 

" And do you recollect them ?" Steerforth said. 

Oh yes, I replied; I had a good memory, and I believed I recollected 
them very well. 

" Then I tell you what, young Copperfield," said Steerforth, "you shall 
tell 'em to me. I can't get to sleep very early at night, and I generally 
wake rather early in the morning. We '11 go over 'em one after another. 
We '11 make some regular Arabian Nights of it." 

I felt extremely flattered by this arrangement, and we commenced carry- 
ing it into execution that very evening:. What ravages I committed on 

v 2 



68 - THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

my favorite authors in the course of my interpretation of them, I am not 
in a condition to say, and should be very unwilling to know ; but I had a 
profound faith in them, and I had, to the best of my belief, a simple, 
earnest manner of narrating what I did narrate ; and these qualities went 
a long way. 

The drawback was, that I was often sleepy at night, or out of spirits and 
indisposed to resume the story ; and then it was rather hard work, and 
it must be done ; for to disappoint or displease Steerforth was of course 
out of the question. In the morning, too, when I felt weary and should 
have enjoyed another hour's repose very much, it was a tiresome thing to 
be roused, like the Sultana Scheherazade, and forced into a long story 
before the getting-up bell rang ; but Steerforth was resolute ; and as 
he explained to me, in return, my sums and exercises, and anything in 
my tasks that was too hard for me, I was no loser by the transaction. 
Let me do myself justice, however. I was moved by no interested or 
selfish motive, nor was I moved by fear of him. I admired and loved 
him, and his approval was return enough. It was so precious to me that 
I look back on these trifles, now, with an aching heart. 

Steerforth was considerate, too ; and showed his consideration, in one 
particular instance, in an unflinching manner that was a little tantalising, 
I suspect, to poor Traddles and the rest. Peggotty's promised letter — 
what a comfortable letter it was ! — arrived before " the half" was many 
weeks old ; and with it a cake in a perfect nest of oranges, and two bottles 
of cowslip wine. This treasure, as in duty bound, I laid at the feet of 
Steerforth, and begged him to dispense. 

"Now, I'll tell you what, young Copperfield," said he: " the wine 
shall be kept to wet your whistle when you are story-telling." 

I blushed at the idea, and begged him, in my modesty, not to think of 
it. But he said he had observed I was sometimes hoarse — a little roopy 
was his exact expression — and it should be, every drop, devoted to the 
purpose he had mentioned. Accordingly, it was locked up in his box, 
and drawn off by himself in a phial, and administered to me through 
a piece of quill in the cork, when I was supposed to be in want of a 
restorative. Sometimes, to make it a more sovereign specific, he was so 
kind as to squeeze orange juice into it, or to stir it up with ginger, or 
dissolve a peppermint drop in it ; and although I cannot assert that the 
flavour was improved by these experiments, or that it was exactly the 
compound one would have chosen for a stomachic, the last thing at night 
and the first thing in the morning, I drank it gratefully and was very 
sensible of his attention. 

We seem, to me, to have been months over Peregrine, and months more 
over the other stories. The institution never flagged for want of a story, 
I am certain ; and the wine lasted out almost as well as the matter. 
Poor Traddles — I never think of that boy but with a strange disposition 
to laugh, and with tears in my eyes — was a sort of chorus, in general; and 
affected to be convulsed with mirth at the comic parts, and to be 
overcome with fear when there was any passage of an alarming character 
in the narrative. This rather put me out, very often. It was a great 
jest of his, I recollect, to pretend that he couldn't keep his teeth from 
chattering, whenever mention was made of an Alguazil in connexion with 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 69 

the adventures of Gil Bias; and I remember, when Gil Bias met the 
captain of the robbers in Madrid, this unlucky joker counterfeited such an 
ague of terror, that he was overheard by Mr. Creakle, who was prowling 
about the passage, and handsomely flogged for disorderly conduct in the 
bedroom. 

Whatever I had within me that was romantic and dreamy, was 
encouraged by so much story-telling in the dark ; and in that respect the 
pursuit may not have been very profitable to me. But the being 
cherished as a kind of plaything in my room, and the consciousness that 
this accomplishment of mine was bruited about among the boys, and 
attracted a good deal of notice to me though I was the youngest there, 
stimulated me to exertion. In a school carried on by sheer cruelty, 
whether it is presided over by a dunce or not, there is not likely to be 
much learnt. I believe our boys were, generally, as ignorant a set as 
any schoolboys in existence ; they were too much troubled and knocked 
about to learn ; they could no more do that to advantage, than any one 
can do anything to advantage in a life of constant misfortune, torment, 
and worry. But my little vanity, and Steerforth's help, urged me on 
somehow; and without saving me from much, if anything, in the way 
of punishment, made me, for the time I was there, an exception to 
the general body, insomuch that I did steadily pick up some crumbs of 
knowledge. 

In this I was much assisted by Mr. Mell, who had a liking for me that 
I am grateful to remember. It always gave me pain to observe that 
Steerforth treated him with systematic disparagement, and seldom lost an 
occasion of wounding his feelings, or inducing others to do so. This 
troubled me the more for a long time, because I had soon told Steerforth, 
from whom I could no more keep such a secret, than I could keep a cake 
or any other tangible possession, about the two old women Mr. Mell had 
taken me to see ; and I was always afraid that Steerforth would let it out, 
and twit him with it. 

We little thought any one of us, I dare say, when I ate my breakfast 
that first morning, and went to sleep under the shadow of the peacock's 
feathers to the sound of the flute, what consequences would come of the 
introduction into those alms-houses of my insignificant person. But the 
visit had its unforeseen consequences; and of a serious sort, too, in 
their way. 

One day when Mr. Creakle kept the house from indisposition, which 
naturally diffused a lively joy through the school, there was a good deal 
of noise in the course of the morning's work. The great relief and 
satisfaction experienced by the boys made them difficult to manage ; and 
though the dreaded Tungay brought his wooden leg in twice or thrice, 
and took notes of the principal offenders' names, no great impression was 
made by it, as they were pretty sure of getting into trouble to-morrow 
do what they would, and thought it wise, no doubt, to enjoy them- 
selves to-day. 

It was, properly, a half-holiday ; being Saturday. But as the noise in 
the playground would have disturbed Mr. Creakle, and the weather was 
not favorable for going out walking, we were ordered into school in the 
afternoon, and set some lighter tasks than usual, which were made for the 



70 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

occasion. It was the day of the week on which Mr. Sharp went oat to 
get his wig curled ; so Mr. Mell, who always did the drudgery, whatever 
it was, kept school by himself. 

If I could associate the idea of a bull or a bear with any one so mild 
as Mr. Mell, I should think of him, in connexion with that afternoon when 
the uproar was at its height, as of one of those animals, baited by a thousand 
dogs. I recall him bending his aching head, supported on his bony 
hand, over the book on his desk, and wretchedly endeavouring to get on 
with his tiresome work, amidst an uproar that might have made the 
Speaker of the House of Commons giddy. Boys started in and out of 
their places, playing at puss in the corner with other boys ; there were 
laughing boys, singing boys, talking boys, dancing boys, howling boys ; 
boys shuffled with their feet, boys whirled about him, grinning, making- 
faces, mimicking him behind his back and before his eyes : mimicking his 
poverty, his boots, his coat, his mother, everything belonging to him that 
they should have had consideration for. 

" Silence ! " cried Mi*. Mell, suddenly rising up, and striking his desk 
with the book. " What does this mean ! It 's impossible to bear it. 
It 's maddening. How can you do it to me, boys ? " 

It was my book that he struck his desk with ; and as I stood beside 
him, following his eye as it glanced round the room, I saw the boys all 
stop, some suddenly surprised, some half afraid, and some sorry perhaps. 

Steerforth' s place was at the bottom of the school, at the opposite end 
of the long room. He was lounging with his back against the wall, and 
his hands in his pockets, and looked at Mr. Mell with his mouth shut up 
as if he were whistling, when Mr. Mell looked at him. 

" Silence, Mr. Steerforth ! " said Mr. Mell. 

" Silence yourself," said Steerforth, turning red. " Whom are you 
talking to ? " 

" Sit down," said Mr. Mell. 

" Sit down yourself," said Steerforth, " and mind your business." 

There was a titter, and some applause; but Mr. Mell was so white, that 
silence immediately succeeded ; and one boy, who had darted out behind 
him to imitate his mother again, changed his mind, and pretended to want 
a pen mended. 

" If you think, Steerforth," said Mr. Mell, " that I am not acquainted 
with the power you can establish over any mind here" — he laid his hand, 
without considering what he did (as I supposed), upon my head — "or that 
I have not observed you, within a few minutes, urging your juniors on to 
every sort of outrage against me, you are mistaken." 

" I don't give myself the trouble of thinking at all about you," said 
Steerforth, coolly; "so I'm not mistaken, as it happens." 

" And when you make use of your position of favoritism here, sir," 
pursued Mr. Mell, with his lip trembling very much, " to insult ■ a 
gentleman — " 

"A what? — where is he ?" said Steerforth. 

Here somebody cried out, " Shame, J. Steerforth ! Too bad ! " It was 
Traddles ; whom Mr. Mell instantly discomfited by bidding him hold his 
tongue. 

— " To insult one who is not fortunate in life, sir, and who never gave 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 71 

you the least offence, and the many reasons for not insulting whom 
you are old enough and wise enough to understand," said Mr. Mell, 
with his lip trembling more and more, " you commit a mean and base 
action. You can sit down or stand up as you please, sir. Copperfield, 
go on." 

" Young Copperfield," said Steerforth, coming forward up the room, 
" stop a bit. I tell you what, Mr. Mell, once for all. When you take 
the liberty of calling me mean or base, or anything of that sort, you are 
an impudent beggar. You are always a beggar, you know ; but when you 
do that, you are an impudent beggar." 

I am not clear whether he was going to strike Mr. Mell, or Mr. Mell was 
going to strike him, or there was any such intention on either side. I 
saw a rigidity come upon the whole school as if they had been turned into 
stone, and found Mr. Creakle in the midst of us, with Tungay at his 
side, and Mrs. and Miss Creakle looking in at the door as if they were 
frightened. Mr. Mell, with his elbows on his desk and his face in his 
hands, sat, for some moments, quite still. 

" Mr. Mell," said Mr. Creakle, shaking him by the arm ; and his whisper 
was so audible now, that Tungay felt it unnecessary to repeat his words ; 
" you have not forgotten yourself, I hope? " 

"No, sir, no," returned the Master, showing his face, and shaking his 
head, and rubbing his hands in great agitation. " No, sir. No. I have 
remembered myself, I — no, Mr. Creakle, I have not forgotten myself, I — 
I have remembered myself, sir. I — I — could wish you had remembered 
me a little sooner, Mr. Creakle. It — it — would have been more kind, sir, 
more just, sir. It would have saved me something, sir." 

Mr. Creakle, looking hard at Mr. Mell, put his hand on Tungay's 
shoulder, and got his feet upon the form close by, and sat upon the desk. 
After still looking hard at Mr. Mell from this throne, as he shook his 
head, and rubbed his hands, and remained in the same state of agitation, 
Mr. Creakle turned to Steerforth, and said : 

"Now, sir, as he don't condescend to tell me, what is this?" 

Steerforth evaded the question for a little while ; looking in scorn and 
anger on his opponent, and remaining silent. I could not help thinking 
even in that interval, I remember, what a noble fellow he was in appear- 
ance, and how homely and plain Mr. Mell looked opposed to him. 

" What did he mean by talking about favorites, then !" said Steerforth 
at length. 

" Favorites ? " repeated Mr. Creakle, with the veins in his forehead 
swelling quickly. " Who talked about favorites ? " 

" He did, " said Steerforth. 

" And pray, what did you mean by that, sir ? " demanded Mr. Creakle, 
turning angrily on his assistant. 

" I meant, Mr. Creakle," he returned in a low voice, " as I said ; that 
no pupil had a right to avail himself of his position of favoritism to 
degrade me." 

• "To degrade you?" said Mr. Creakle. "My stars! But give me 
leave to ask you, Mr. What's-your-name ; " and here Mr. Creakle folded 
his arms, cane and all, upon his chest, and made such a knot of his brows 
that his little eyes were hardly visible below them ; " whether, when you 



72 THE PERSONAL HISTORIC AND EXPERIENCE 

talk about favorites, you showed proper respect to me? To me, sir," 
said Mr. Creakle, darting Ms head at him suddenly, and drawing it back 
again, " the principal of this establishment, and your employer." 

" It was not judicious, sir, I am willing to admit," said Mr. Mell. " I 
should not have done so, if I had been cool." 

Here Steerforth struck in. 

" Then he said I was mean, and then he said I was base, and then I 
called him a beggar. If I had been cool, perhaps I shouldn't have called 
him a beggar. But I did, and I am ready to take the consequences of it." 

Without considering, perhaps, whether there were any consequences to 
be taken, I felt quite in a glow at this gallant speech. It made an 
impression on the boys too, for there was a low stir among them, though 
no one spoke a word. 

" I am surprised, Steerforth — although your candor does you honor," 
said Mr. Creakle, " does you honor, certainly — I am surprised, Steerforth, 
I must say, that you should attach such an epithet to any person employed 
and paid in Salem House, sir." 

Steerforth gave a short laugh. 

" That 's not an answer, sir," said Mr. Creakle, " to my remark. I 
expect more than that, from you, Steerforth." 

If Mr. Mell looked homely, in my eyes, before the handsome boy, it 
would be quite impossible to say how homely Mr. Creakle looked. 

" Let him deny it," said Steerforth. 

" Deny that he is a beggar, Steerforth? " cried Mr. Creakle. " Why, 
where does he go a begging ? " 

" If he is not a beggar himself, his near relation's one," said Steerforth. 
" It 's all the same." 

He glanced at me, and Mr. Mell's hand gently patted me upon the 
shoulder. I looked up, with a flush upon my face and remorse in my 
heart, but Mr. Mell's eyes were fixed on Steerforth. He continued to pat 
me kindly on the shoulder, but he looked at him. 

" Since you expect me, Mr. Creakle, to justify myself," said Steerforth, 
" and to say what I mean, — what I have to say is, that his mother lives 
on charity in an alms-house." 

Mr. Mell still looked at him, and still patted me kindly on the shoulder, 
and said to himself, in a whisper, if I heard right : " Yes, I thought so." 

Mr. Creakle turned to his assistant, with a severe frown and labored 
politeness. 

" Now, you hear what this gentleman says, Mr. Mell. Have the good- 
ness, if you please, to set him right before the assembled school." 

" He is right, sir, without correction," returned Mr. Mell, in the midst 
of a dead silence ; " what he has said, is true." 

"Be so good then as declare publicly, will you," said Mr. Creakle, 
putting his head on one side, and rolling his eyes round the school, 
" whether it ever came to my knowledge until this moment ? " 

" I believe not directly," he returned. 

" Why, you know not," said Mr. Creakle. "Don't you, man? " 

"I apprehend you never supposed my worldly circumstances to be 
very good," replied the assistant. " You know what my position is, and 
always has been, here." 



OF DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 73 

" I apprehend, if you come to that," said Mr. Creakle, with his veins 
swelling again bigger than ever, " that you 've been in a wrong position 
altogether, and mistook this for a charity school. Mr. Mell, we '11 part if 
you please. The sooner the better." 

" There is no time," answered Mr. Mell, rising, "like the present." 

" Sir, to you ! " said Mr. Creakle. 

" I take my leave of you, Mr. Creakle, and of all of you," said Mr. 
Mell, glancing round the room, and again patting me gently on the 
shoulder. " James Steerforth, the best wish I can leave you is that you 
may come to be ashamed of what you have done to-day. At present I 
would prefer to see you anything rather than a friend, to me, or to any 
one in whom I feel an interest." 

Once more he laid his hand upon my shoulder ; and then taking his 
flute and a few books from his desk, and leaving the key in it for his 
successor, he went out of the school, with his property under his arm. 
Mr. Creakle then made a speech, through Tungay, in which he thanked 
Steerforth for asserting (though perhaps too warmly) the independence 
and respectability of Salem House ; and which he wound up by shaking 
hands with Steerforth, while we gave three cheers — I did not quite know 
what for, but I supposed for Steerforth, and so joined in them ardently, 
though I felt miserable. Mr. Creakle then caned Tommy Traddles for 
being discovered in tears, instead of cheers, on account of Mr. MelPs depar- 
ture ; and went back to his sofa, or his bed, or wherever he had come 
from. 

We were left to ourselves now, and looked very blank, I recollect, on 
one another. For myself, I felt so much self-reproach and contrition 
for my part in what had happened, that nothing would have enabled me 
to keep back my tears but the fear that Steerforth, who often looked at me, 
I saw, might think it unfriendly — or, I should rather say, considering our 
relative ages, and the feeling with which I regarded him, undutiful — if I 
showed the emotion which distressed me. He was very angry with 
Traddles, and said he was glad he had caught it. 

Poor Traddles, who had passed the stage of lying with his head upon 
the desk, and was relieving himself as usual with a burst of skeletons, said 
he didn't care. Mr. Mell was ill-used. 

" Who has ill-used him, you girl ? " said Steerforth. 

" Why, you have," returned Traddles. 

" What have I done? " said Steerforth. 

" What have you done ? " retorted Traddles. " Hurt his feelings, and 
lost him his situation." 

" His feelings ! " repeated Steerforth disdainfully. " His feelings will 
soon get the better of it, I '11 be bound. His feelings are not like yours, 
Miss Traddles. As to his situation — which was a precious one, wasn't 
it ? — do you suppose I am not going to write home, and take care that he 
gets some money ? Polly ? " 

We thought this intention very noble in Steerforth, whose mother was 
a widow, and rich, and would do almost anything, it was said, that he 
asked her. We were all extremely glad to see Traddles so put down, and 
exalted Steerforth to the skies : especially when he told us, as he con- 
descended to do, that what he had done had been done expressly for us, and 



74 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

for our cause ; and that he had conferred a great boon upon us by unselfishly 
doing it. 

But I must say that when I was going on with a story in the dark that 
night, Mr. Mell's old flute seemed more than once to sound mournfully in 
my ears ; and that when at last Steerforth was tired, and I lay down in 
my bed, I fancied it playing so sorrowfully somewhere, that I was quite 
wretched. 

I soon forgot him in the contemplation of Steerforth, who, in an easy 
amateur way, and without any book (he seemed to me to know everything 
by heart), took some of his classes until a new master was found. The 
new master came from a grammar-school ; and before he entered on his 
duties, dined in the parlor one day to be introduced to Steerforth. 
Steerforth approved of him highly, and told us he was a Brick. 
Without exactly understanding what learned distinction was meant by 
this, I respected him greatly for it, and had no doubt whatever of his 
superior knowledge : though he never took the pains with me — not 
that / was anybody — that Mr. Mell had taken. 

There was only one other event in this half-year, out of the daily 
school-life, that made an impression on me which still survives. It sur- 
vives for many reasons. 

One afternoon, when we were all harassed into a state of dire confusion, 
and Mr. Creakle was laying about him dreadfully, Tungay came in, and 
called out in his usual strong way : " Visitors for Copperfield ! " 

A few words were interchanged between him and Mr. Creakle, as, 
who the visitors were, and what room they were to be shown into ; and 
then I, who had, according to custom, stood up on the announcement 
being made, and felt quite faint with astonishment, was told to go by the 
back stairs and get a clean frill on, before I repaired to the dining-room. 
These orders I obeyed, in such a flutter and hurry of my young spirits as 
I had never known before ; and when I got to the parlor-door, and the 
thought came into my head that it might be my mother — I had only 
thought of Mr. or Miss Murdstone until then — I drew back my hand from 
the lock, and stopped to have a sob before I went in. 

At first I saw nobody ; but feeling a pressure against the door, I looked 
round it, and there, to my amazement, were Mr. Peggotty and Ham, 
ducking at me with their hats, and squeezing one another against the 
wall. I could not help laughing ; but it was much more in the pleasure 
of seeing them, than at the appearance they made. We shook hands in 
a very cordial way ; and I laughed and laughed, until I pulled out my 
pocket-handkerchief and wiped my eyes. 

Mr. Peggotty (who never shut his mouth once, I remember, during the 
visit) showed great concern when he saw me do this, and nudged Ham to 
say something. 

" Cheer up, Mas'r Davy bo' ! " said Ham, in his simpering way. 
" Why, how you have growed ! " 

"Am I grown?" I said, drying my eyes. I was not crying at 
anything particular that I know of; but somehow it made me cry to see 
old friends. 

" Growed, Mas'r Davy bo' ? Ain't he growed !" said Ham. 

" Ain't he growed !" said Mr. Peggotty. 



OP DAVID COPPERPIELD. 75 

They made me laugh again by laughing at each other, and then we all 
three laughed until I was in danger of crying again. 

" Do you know how mama is, Mr. Peggotty ? " I said. " And how my 
dear, dear, old Peggotty is ? " 

" Oncommon," said Mr. Peggotty. 

" And little Em'ly, and Mrs. Gummidge? " 

" On — common," said Mr. Peggotty. 

There was a silence. Mr. Peggotty, to relieve it, took two prodigious 
lobsters, and an enormous crab, and a large canvas bag of shrimps, out of 
his pockets, and piled them up in Ham's arms. 

" You see," said Mr. Peggotty, " knowing as you was partial to a little 
relish with your wittles when you was along with us, we took the liberty. 
The old Mawther biled 'em, she did. Mrs. Gummidge biled 'em. Yes," 
said Mr. Peggotty slowly, Who I thought appeared to stick to the subject 
on account of having no other subject ready, "Mrs. Gummidge, I do 
assure you, she biled 'em." 

I expressed my thanks ; and Mr. Peggotty, after looking at Ham, who 
stood smiling sheepishly over the shell-fish, without making any attempt 
to help him, said : 

" We come, you see, the wind and tide making in our favor, in one of 
our Yarmouth lugs to Gravesen'. My sister she wrote to me the name of 
this here place, and wrote to me as if ever I chanced to come to Gravesen', 
I was to come over and enquire for Mas'r Davy and give her dooty, humbly 
wishing him well and reporting of the fam'ly as they was oncommon 
toe-be-sure. Little Em'ly, you see, she '11 write to my sister when I go 
back, as I see you and as you was similarly oncommon, and so we make it 
quite a merry-go-rounder." 

I was obliged to consider a little before I understood what Mr. 
Peggotty meant by this figure, expressive of a complete circle of intelligence. 
I then thanked him heartily ; and said, with a consciousness of reddening, 
that I supposed Little Em'ly was altered too, since we used to pick up 
shells and pebbles on the beach ? 

" She 's getting to be a woman, that 's wot she 's getting to be," said 
Mr. Peggotty. " Ask him." 

He meant Ham, who beamed with delight and assent over the bag of 
shrimps. 

" Pier pretty face ! " said Mr. Peggotty, with his own shining like a 
light. 

" Her learning ! " said Ham. 

" Her writing ! " said Mr. Peggotty. " Why, it 's as black as jet ! And 
so large it is, you might see it anywheres." 

It was perfectly delightful to behold with what enthusiasm Mr. Peggotty 
became inspired when he thought of his little favorite. He stands before 
me again, his bluff hairy face irradiating with a joyful love and pride, for 
which I can find no description. His honest eyes fire up, and sparkle, 
as if their depths were stirred by something bright. His broad chest 
heaves with pleasure. His strong loose hands clench themselves, in his 
earnestness ; and he emphasises what he says with aright arm that shows, 
in my pigmy view, like a sledge hammer. 

Ham was quite as earnest as he. I dare say they would have said 



76 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

much more about her, if they had not been abashed by the unexpected 
coming in of Steerforth, who, seeing me in a corner speaking with two 
strangers, stopped in a song he was singing, and said : "I didn't know 
you were here, young Copperfield ! " (for it was not the usual visiting 
room), and crossed by us on his way out. 

I am not sure whether it was in the pride of having such a friend as 
Steerforth, or in the desire to explain to him how I came to have such a 
friend as Mr. Peggotty, that I called to him as he was going away. But 
I said, modestly — Good Heaven, how it all comes back to me this long 
time afterwards ! — 

" Don't go, Steerforth, if you please. These are two Yarmouth boat- 
men — very kind, good people — who are relations of my nurse, and have 
come from Gravesend to see me." 

" Aye, aye ? " said Steerforth, returning. " I am glad to see them. 
How are you both ? " 

There was an ease in his manner — a gay and light manner it was, but 
not swaggering — which I still believe to have borne a kind of enchant- 
ment with it. I still believe him, in virtue of this carriage, his animal spirits, 
his delightful voice, his handsome face and figure, and, for aught I know, of 
some inborn power of attraction besides (which I think a few people 
possess), to have carried a spell with him to which it was a natural weak- 
ness to yield, and which not many persons could withstand. I could not 
but see how pleased they were with him, and how they seemed to open 
their hearts to him in a moment. 

"You must let them know at home, if you please, Mr. Peggotty," I 
said, " when that letter is sent, that Mr. Steerforth is very kind to me, 
and that I don't know what I should ever do here without him." 

"Nonsense!" said Steerforth, laughing. "You mustn't tell them 
anything of the sort." 

"And if Mr. Steerforth ever comes into Norfolk or Suffolk, Mr. Peg- 
gotty," I said, " while I am there, you may depend upon it I shall bring 
him to Yarmouth, if he will let me, to see your house. You never saw 
such a good house, Steerforth. It 's made out of a boat ! " 

" Made out of a boat, is it ? " said Steerforth. " It 's the right sort 
of house for such a thorough-built boatman." 

" So 'tis, sir, so 'tis, sir," said Ham, grinning. "You 're right, young 
gen'lm'n. Mas'r Davy bo', gen'lm'n 's right. A thorough-built boatman ! 
Hor, hor ! That 's what he is, too ! " 

Mr. Peggotty was no less pleased than his nephew, though his modesty 
forbade him to claim a personal compliment so vociferously. 

" Well, sir," he said, bowing and chuckling, and tucking in the ends of 
his neckerchief at his breast, "I thankee, sir, I thankee! I do my 
endeavours in my line of life, sir." 

" The best of men can do no more, Mr. Peggotty," said Steerforth. 
He had got his name already. 

"I '11 pound it, it 's wot you do yourself, sir," said Mi*. Peggotty, 
shaking his head, "and wot you do well — right well! I thankee, sir. 
I 'm obleeged to you, sir, for your welcoming manner of me. I 'm rough, 
sir, but I 'm ready — least ways, I hope I 'm ready, you understand. My 
house ain't much for to see, sir, but it 's hearty at your service if ever you 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 77 

should come along with Mas'r Davy to see it. I'm- a reg'lar Dodman, I 
am," said Mr. Peggotty ; by which he meant snail, and this was in allusion 
to his being slow to go, for he had attempted to go after every sentence, 
and had somehow or other come back again ; " but I wish you both well, 
and I wish you happy ! " 

Ham echoed this sentiment, and we parted with them in the heartiest 
manner. I was almost tempted that evening to tell Steerforth about pretty 
little Em'ly, but I was too timid of mentioning her name, and too much 
afraid of his laughing at me. I remember that I thought a good deal, 
and in an uneasy sort of way, about Mr. Peggotty having said that she 
was getting on to be a woman ; but I decided that was nonsense. 

We transported the shell-fish, or the "relish" as Mr. Peggotty had 
modestly called it, up into our room unobserved, and made a great supper 
that evening. But Traddles couldn't get happily out of it. He was too 
unfortunate even to come through a supper like anybody else. He was 
taken ill in the night — quite prostrate he was — in consequence of Crab ; 
and after being drugged with black draughts and blue pills, to an extent 
which Demple (whose father was a doctor) said was enough to undermine 
a horse's constitution, received a caning and six chapters of Greek Testa- 
ment for refusing to confess. 

The rest of the half-year is a jumble in my recollection of the daily 
strife and struggle of our lives ; of the waning summer and the changing 
season ; of the frosty mornings when we were rung out of bed, and the cold, 
cold smell of the dark nights when we were rung into bed again ; of the 
evening schoolroom dimly lighted and indifferently warmed, and the morn- 
ing schoolroom which was nothing but a great shivering-machine ; of the 
alternation of boiled beef with roast beef, and boiled mutton with roast 
mutton; of clods of bread-and-butter, dog's-eared lesson-books, cracked 
slates, tear-blotted copy-books, canings, rulerings, hair-cuttings, rainy 
Sundays, suet puddings, and a dirty atmosphere of ink surrounding all. 

I well remember though, how the distant idea of the holidays, after 
seeming for an immense time to be a stationary speck, began to come 
towards us, and to grow and grow. How, from counting months, we 
came to weeks, and then to days; and how I then began to be afraid that I 
should not be sent for, and, when I learnt from Steerforth that I had been 
sent for and was certainly to go home, had dim forebodings that I might 
break my leg first. How the breaking-up day changed its place fast, at last, 
from the week after next to next week, this week, the day after to-morrow, 
to-morrow, to day, to-night — when I was inside the Yarmouth mail, and 
going home. 

I had many a broken sleep inside the Yarmouth mail, and many an 
incoherent dream of all these things. But when I awoke at intervals, 
the ground outside the window was not the playground of Salem House, 
and the sound in my ears was not the sound of Mr. Creakle giving it to 
Traddles, but the sound of the coachman touching up the horses. 



78 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 



CHAPTER VIII. 

MY HOLIDAYS. ESPECIALLY ONE HAPPY AFTERNOON. 

When we arrived before day at the inn where the mail stopped, which 
was not the inn where my friend the waiter lived, I was shown up to a nice 
little bedroom, with Dolphin painted on the door. Yery cold I was I 
know, notwithstanding the hot tea they had given me before a large fire 
down-stairs ; and very glad I was to turn into the Dolphin's bed, pull the 
Dolphin's blankets round my head, and go to sleep. 

Mr. Barkis the carrier was to call for me in the morning at nine o'clock. 
I got up at eight, a little giddy from the shortness of my night's rest, and 
was ready for him before the appointed time. He received me exactly as 
if not five minutes had elapsed since we were last together, and I had 
only been into the hotel to get change for sixpence, or something of that 
sort. 

As soon as I and my box were in the cart, and the carrier seated, the 
lazy horse walked away with us all at his accustomed pace. 

" You look very well, Mr. Barkis," I said, thinking he would like to 
know it. 

Mr. Barkis rubbed his cheek with his cufT, and then looked at his cuff 
as if he expected to find some of the bloom upon it ; but made no other 
acknowledgment of the compliment. 

"I gave your message, Mr. Barkis," I said; "I wrote to Peggotty." 

"Ah!" said Mr. Barkis. 

Mr. Barkis seemed gruff, and answered drily. 

" Wasn't it right, Mr. Barkis ? " I asked, after a little hesitation. 

" Why, no," said Mr. Barkis. 

"Not the message?" 

"The message was right enough, perhaps," said Mr. Barkis ; "but it 
come to an end there." 

Not understanding what he meant, I repeated inquisitively : " Came to 
an end, Mr. Barkis ? " 

" Nothing come of it," he explained, looking at me sideways. " No 
answer." 

" There was an answer expected, was there, Mr. Barkis ? " said I, 
opening my eyes. Por this was a new light to me. 

" When a man says he 's willin'," said Mr. Barkis, turning his glance 
slowly on me again, " it 's as much as to say, that man 's a waitin' for a 
answer." 

"Well, Mr. Barkis?" 

" Well," said Mr. Barkis, carrying his eyes back to his horse's ears ; 
"that man 's been a waitin' for a answer ever since." 

" Have you told her so, Mr. Barkis ? " 

«N — n o," growled Mr. Barkis, reflecting about it. "I ain't got no 
call to go and tell her so. I never said six words to her myself. / ain't 
a goin' to tell her so." 




* 



OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 79 

"Would you like me to do it, Mr. Barkis? " said I, doubtfully. 

" You might tell her, if you would," said Mr. Barkis, with another 
slow look at me, " that Barkis was a waitin' for a answer. Says you — 
what name is it ? " 

" Her name ? " 

" Ah ! " said Mr. Barkis, with a nod of his head. 

« Peggotty." 

" Chrisen name ? Or nat'ral name ? " said Mr. Barkis. 

" Oh, it 's not her christian name. Her christian name is Clara." 

" Is it though ! " said Mr. Barkis. 

He seemed to find an immense fund of reflection in this circumstance, 
and sat pondering and inwardly whistling for some time. 

"Well ! " he resumed at length. " Says you, ' Peggotty ! Barkis is a 
waitin' for a answer.' Says she, perhaps, ' Answer to what ? ' Says you, 
1 To what I told you.' ' What is that ? ' says she. ' Barkis is willin'/ 
says you." 

This extremely artful suggestion, Mr. Barkis accompanied with a nudge 
of his elbow that gave me quite a stitch in my side. After that, he 
slouched over his horse in his usual manner ; and made no other reference 
to the subject except, half an hour afterwards, taking a piece of chalk from 
his pocket, and writing up, inside the tilt of the cart, " Clara Peggotty " 
— apparently as a private memorandum. 

Ah, what a strange feeling it was to be going home when it was not 
home, and to find that every object I looked at, reminded me of the happy 
old home, which was like a dream I could never dream again ! The days 
when my mother and I and Peggotty were all in all to one another, and 
there was no one to come between us, rose up before me so sorrowfully 
on the road, that I am not sure I was glad to be there — not sure but that 
I would rather have remained away, and forgotten it in Steerforth's com- 
pany. But there I was ; and soon I was at our house, where the bare old 
elm trees wrung their many hands in the bleak wintry air, and shreds of 
the old rooks' nests drifted away upon the wind. 

The carrier put my box down at the garden gate, and left me. I 
walked along the path towards the house, glancing at the windows, and 
fearing at every step to see Mr. Murdstone or Miss Murdstone lowering 
out of one of them. No face appeared, however ; and being come to the 
house, and knowing how to open the door, before dark, without knocking, 
I went in with a quiet, timid step. 

God knows how infantine the memory may have been, that was awakened 
within me by the sound of my mother's voice in the old parlor, when I 
set foot in the hall. She was singing in a low tone. I think I must 
have lain in her arms, and heard her singing so to me when I was but a baby. 
The strain was new to me, and yet it was so old that it filled my heart 
brim-full ; like a friend come back from a long absence. 

I believed, from the solitary and thoughtful way in which my mother 
murmured her song, that she was alone. And I went softly into the room. 
She was sitting by the fire, suckling an infant, whose tiny hand she held 
against her neck. Her eyes were looking down upon its face, and she sat 
singing to it. I was so far right, that she had no other companion. 

I spoke to her, and she started, and cried out. But seeing me, she 



80 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

called me her dear Davy, her own boy ! and coming half across the room 
to meet me, kneeled down upon the ground and kissed me, and laid my 
head down on her bosom near the little creature that was nestling there, 
and put its hand up to my lips. 

I wish I had died. I wish I had died then, with that feeling in my 
heart ! I should have been more fit for Heaven than I ever have been 
since. 

'•'He is your brother," said my mother, fondling me. "Davy, my 
pretty boy ! My poor child ! " Then she kissed me more and more, and 
clasped me round the neck. This she was doing when Peggotty came 
running in, and bounced down on the ground beside us, and went mad 
about us both for a quarter of an hour. 

It seemed that I had not been expected so soon, the carrier being much 
before his usual time. It seemed, too, that Mr. and Miss Murdstone had 
gone out upon a visit in the neighbourhood, and would not return before 
night. I had never hoped for this. I had never thought it possible that 
we three could be together undisturbed, once more ; and 1 felt, for the 
time, as if the old days were come back. 

We dined together by the fireside. Peggotty was in attendance to wait 
upon us, but my mother wouldn't let her do it, and made her dine with us. 
I had my own old plate, with a brown view of a man-of-war in full sail 
upon it, which Peggotty had hoarded somewhere all the time I had been 
away, and would not have had broken, she said, for a hundred pounds. I 
had my own old mug with David on it, and my own old little knife and 
fork that wouldn't cut. 

While we were at table, I thought it a favorable occasion to tell Peggotty 
about Mr. Barkis, who, before I had finished what I had to tell her, began 
to laugh, and threw her apron over her face. 

" Peggotty ! " said my mother. " What 's the matter? " 

Peggotty only laughed the more, and held her apron tight over her face 
when my mother tried to pull it away, and sat as if her head were in a bag. 

" What are you doing, you stupid creature ?" said my mother, laughing. 

" Oh, drat the man ! " cried Peggotty. " He wants to marry me." 

" It would be a very good match for you • wouldn't it ? " said my 
mother. 

" Oh ! I don't know," said Peggotty. " Don't ask me. I wouldn't 
have him if he was made of gold. Nor I wouldn't have anybody." 

" Then, why don't you tell him so, you ridiculous thing ? " said my 
mother. 

" Tell him so," retorted Peggotty, looking out of her apron. " He has 
never said a word to me about it. He knows better. If he was to make 
so bold as say a word to me, I should slap his face." 

Her own was as red as ever I saw it, or any other face, I think ; but she 
only covered it again, for a few moments at a time, when she was taken 
with a violent fit of laughter ; and after two or three of those attacks, went 
on with her dinner. 

I remarked that my mother, though she smiled when Peggotty looked at 
her, became more serious and thoughtful. I had seen at first that she was 
changed. Her face was very pretty still, but it looked careworn, and too 
delicate ; and her hand was so thin and white that it seemed to me to be 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 81 

almost transparent. But the change to which I now refer was superadded 
to this : it was in her manner, which became anxious and fluttered. At 
last she said, putting out her hand, and laying it affectionately on the hand 
of her old servant, 

" Peggotty, dear, you are not going to be married ? " 

" Me, ma'am ? " returned Peggotty, staring. " Lord bless you, no ! " 

" Not just yet ? " said my mother, tenderly. 

" Never ! " cried Peggotty. 

My mother took her hand, and said : 

" Don't leave me, Peggotty. Stay with me. It will not be for long, 
perhaps. What should I ever do without you ! " 

" Me leave you, my precious ! " cried Peggotty. " Not for all the 
world and his wife. Why, what 's put that in your silly little head ? " 
— Por Peggotty had been used of old to talk to my mother sometimes 
like a child. 

But my mother made no answer, except to thank her, and Peggotty 
went running on in her own fashion. 

" Me leave you ? I think I see myself. Peggotty go away from you ? 
I should like to catch her at it ! No, no, no," said Peggotty, shaking her 
head, and folding her arms ; " not she, my dear. It isn't that there ain't 
some Cats that would be well enough pleased if she did, but they shan't 
be pleased. They shall be aggravated. I '11 stay with you till I am a 
cross cranky old woman. And when I'm too deaf, and too lame, and too 
blind, and too mumbly for want of teeth, to be of any use at all, even to be 
found fault with, then I shall go to my Davy, and ask him to take me in." 

" And, Peggotty," says I, " I shall be glad to see you, and I '11 make 
you as welcome as a queen." 

" Bless your dear heart ! " cried Peggotty. " I know you will ! " And 
she kissed me beforehand, in grateful acknowledgment of my hospitality. 
After that, she covered her head up with her apron again, and had another 
laugh about Mr. Barkis. After that, she took the baby out of its little 
cradle, and nursed it. After that, she cleared the dinner-table ; after that, 
came in with another cap on, and her work-box, and the yard-measure, 
and the bit of wax candle, all just the same as ever. 

We sat round the fire, and talked delightfully: I told them what a hard 
master Mr. Creakle was, and they pitied me very much. I told them 
what a fine fellow Steerforth was, and what a patron of mine, and Peggotty 
said she would walk a score of miles to see him. I took the little baby in 
my arms when it was awake, and nursed it lovingly. When it was asleep 
again, I crept close to my mother's side according to my old custom, 
broken now a long time, and sat with my arms embracing her waist, and 
my little red cheek on her shoulder, and once more felt her beautiful hair 
drooping over me — like an angel's wing as I used to think, I recollect — 
and was very happy indeed. 

While I sat thus, looking at the fire, and seeing pictures in the red-hot 
coals, I almost believed that I had never been away ; that Mr. and Miss 
Murdstone were such pictures, and would vanish when the fire got low ; 
and that there was nothing real in all that I remembered, save my mother, 
Peggotty, and I. 

Peggotty darned away at a stocking as long as she could see, and then 

G 



82 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

sat with it drawn on her left hand like a glove, and her needle in her 
right, ready to take another stitch whenever there was a blaze. I cannot 
conceive whose stockings they can have been that Peggotty was always 
darning, or where such an unfailing supply of stockings in want of 
darning can have come from. Prom my earliest infancy she seems to 
have been always employed in that class of needlework, and never by any 
chance in any other. 

" I wonder," said Peggotty, who was sometimes seized with a fit of won- 
dering on some most unexpected topic, " what 's become of Davy's great- 
aunt ? " 

" Lor, Peggotty ! " observed my mother, rousing herself from a reverie, 
" what nonsense you talk ! " 

" Well, but I really do wonder, ma'am," said Peggotty. 

" What can have put such a person in your head ? " inquired my mother. 
" Is there nobody else in the world to come there? " 

"I don't know how it is," said Peggotty, "unless it 's on account of 
being stupid, but my head never can pick and choose its people. They 
come and they go, and they don't come and they don't go, just as they like. 
I wonder what 's become of her ? " 

" How absurd you are, Peggotty," returned my mother. " One would 
suppose you wanted a second visit from her." 

** Lord forbid ! " cried Peggotty. 

" Well then, don't talk about such uncomfortable things, there's a good 
soul," said my mother. " Miss Betsey is shut up in her cottage by the 
sea, no doubt, and will remain there. At all events, she is not likely ever 
to trouble us again." 

" No ! " mused Peggotty. " No, that ain't likely at all. — I wonder, if 
she was to die, whether she 'd leave Davy anything ? " 

" Good gracious me," Peggotty," returned my mother, " what a non- 
sensical woman you are ! when you know that she took offence at the poor 
dear boy's ever being born at all ! " 

" I suppose she wouldn't be inclined to forgive him now," hinted 
Peggotty. 

" Why should she be inclined to forgive him now ? " said my mother, 
rather sharply. 

" Now that he's got a brother, I mean," said Peggotty. 

My mother immediately began to cry, and wondered how Peggotty 
dared to say such a thing. 

" As if this poor little innocent in its cradle had ever done any harm to 
you or anybody else, you jealous thing ! " said she. " You had much 
better go and marry Mr. Barkis, the carrier. Why don't you ? " 

*' I should make Miss Murdstone happy, if I was to," said Peggotty. 

" Wliat a bad disposition you have, Peggotty! " returned my mother. 
"You are as jealous of Miss Murdstone as it is possible for a ridiculous 
creature to be. You want to keep the keys yourself, and give out all the 
things, I suppose ? I shouldn't be surprised if you did. When you know 
that she only does it out of kindness and the best intentions ! You know 
she does, Peggotty — you know it well/' 

Peggotty muttered something to the effect of " Bother the best inten- 
tions ! " and something else to the effect that there was a little too much 
of the best intentions going on. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 83 

" I know what you mean, you cross thing," said my mother. " I 
understand you, Peggotty, perfectly. You know I do, and I wonder you 
don't color up like fire. But one point at a time. Miss Murdstone is 
the point now, Peggotty, and you sha'n't escape from it. Haven't you 
heard her say, over and over again, that she thinks I am too thoughtless 
and too — a — a — " 

"Pretty," suggested Peggotty. 

" Well," returned my mother, half laughing, " and if she is so silly as to 
say so, can I be blamed for it ? " 

" No one says you can," said Peggotty. 

" No, I should hope not, indeed ! " returned my mother. " Haven't 
you heard her say, over and over again, that on this account she wishes to 
spare me a great deal of trouble, which she thinks I am not suited for, and 
which I really don't know myself that I am suited for; and isn't she up 
early and late, and going to and fro continually — and doesn't she do all 
sorts of things, and grope into all sorts of places, coal-holes and pantries 
and I don't know where, that can't be very agreeable — and do you mean 
to insinuate that there is not a sort of devotion in that ? " 

" I don't insinuate at all," said Peggotty, 

" You do, Peggotty," returned my mother. " You never do anything 
else, except your work. You are always insinuating. You revel in it. 
And when you talk of Mr. Murdstone's good intentions — " 

" I never talked of 'em," said Peggotty. 

"No, Peggotty," returned my mother, " but you insinuated. That's 
what I told you just now. That 's the worst of you. You will insinuate. 
I said, at the moment, that I understood you, and you see I did. When 
you talk of Mr. Murdstone's good intentions, and pretend to slight them 
(for I don't believe you really do, in your heart, Peggotty), you must be as 
well convinced as I am how good they are, and how they actuate him in 
everything. If he seems to have been at all stern with a certain person, 
Peggotty — you understand, and so I am sure does Davy, that I am not 
alluding to any body present — it is solely because he is satisfied that it 
is for a certain person's benefit. He naturally loves a certain person, on 
my account ; and acts solely for a certain person's good. He is better able 
to judge of it than I am ; for I very well know that I am a weak, light, 
girlish creature, and that he is a firm, grave, serious man. And he takes," 
said my mother, with the tears which were engendered in her affectionate 
nature, stealing down her face, " he takes great pains with me ; and I 
ought to be very thankful to him, and very submissive to him even in my 
thoughts ; and when I am not, Peggotty, I worry and condemn myself, 
and feel doubtful of my own heart, and don't know what to do." 

Peggotty sat with her chin on the foot of the stocking, looking silently 
at the fire. 

" There, Peggotty," said my mother, changing her tone, "don't let us 
fall out with one another, for I couldn't bear it. You are my true friend, 
I know, if I have any in the world. When I call you a ridiculous 
creature, or a vexatious thing, or anything of that sort, Peggotty, I only 
mean that you are my true friend, and always have been, ever since the night 
when Mr. Copperfield first brought me home here, and you came out to 
the gate to meet me." 

a 2 



84 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Peggotty was not slow to respond, and ratified the treaty of friendship 
by giving me one of her best hngs. I think I had some glimpses of the 
real character of this conversation at the time ; but I am sure, now, that 
the good creature originated it, and took her part in it, merely that my 
mother might comfort herself with the little contradictory summary in 
which she had indulged. The design was efficacious ; for I remember that 

Do ' 

my mother seemed more at ease during the rest of the evening, and that 
Peggotty observed her less. 

When we had had our tea, and the ashes were thrown up, and the 
candles snuffed, I read Peggotty a chapter out of the Crocodile Book, in 
remembrance of old times — she took it out of her pocket : I don't know 
whether she had kept it there ever since — and then we talked about Salem 
House, which brought me round again to Steerforth, who was my great 
subject. We were very happy ; and that evening, as the last of its race, 
and destined evermore to close that volume of my life, will never pass out 
of my memory. 

It was almost ten o'clock before we heard the sound of wheels. We 
all got up then ; and my mother said hurriedly that, as it was so late, and 
Mr. and Miss Murdstone approved of early hours for young people, per- 
haps I had better go to bed. I kissed her, and went up-stairs with my 
candle directly, before they came in. It appeared to my childish fancy, as 
I ascended to the bedroom where I had been imprisoned, that they brought 
a cold blast of air into the house which blew away the old familiar feeling 
like a feather. 

I felt uncomfortable about going down to breakfast in the morning, as 
I had never set eyes on Mr. Murdstone since the day when I committed 
my memorable offence. However, as it mast be done, I went down, after 
two or three false starts half-way, and as many runs back on tiptoe to my 
own room, and presented myself in the parlor. 

He was standing before the fire with his back to it, while Miss Murd- 
stone made the tea. He looked at me steadily as I entered, but made no 
sign of recognition whatever. 

I went up to him, after a moment of confusion, and said : " I beg your 
pardon, sir. I am very sorry for what I did, and I hope you will 
forgive me." 

" I am glad to hear you are sorry, David," he replied. 

The hand he gave me was the hand I had bitten. I could not restrain 
my eye from resting for an instant on a red spot upon it ; but it was not 
so red as I turned, when I met that sinister expression in his face. 

" How do you do, ma'am," I said to Miss Murdstone. 

" Ah, dear me! " sighed Miss Murdstone, giving me the tea-caddy 
scoop instead of her fingers. " How long are the holidays ? " 

" A month, ma'am." 

" Counting from when ? " 

"From to-day, ma'am." 

" Oh ! " said Miss Murdstone. " Then here 's one day off." 

She kept a calendar of the holidays in this way, and every morning 
checked a day off in exactly the same manner. She did it gloomily until 
she came to ten, but when she got into two figures she became more 
hopeful, and, as the time advanced, even jocular. 

It was on this very first day that I had the misfortune to throw her, 



OP DAVID COPPEKPIELD. 85 

though she was not subject to such weaknesses in general, into a state of 
violent consternation. I came into the room where she and my mother 
were sitting ; and the baby (who was only a few weeks old) being on my 
mother's lap, I took it very carefully in my arms. Suddenly Miss Murd- 
stone gave such a scream that I all but dropped it. 

" My dear Jane ! " cried my mother. 

" Good heavens, Clara, do you see ? " exclaimed Miss Murdstone. 

" See what, my dear Jane ? " said my mother ; " where ? " 

"He's got it!" cried Miss Murdstone. "The boy has got the 
baby ! " 

She was limp with horror ; but stiffened herself to make a dart at me, 
and take it out of my arms. Then, she turned faint ; and was so very ill, 
that they were obliged to give her cherry-brandy. I was solemnly in- 
terdicted by her, on her recovery, from touching my brother any more 
on any pretence whatever ; and my poor mother, who, I could see, wished 
otherwise, meekly confirmed the interdict, by saying : " No doubt you are 
right, my dear Jane." 

On another occasion, when we three were together, this same dear baby 
— it was truly dear to me, for our mother's sake — was the innocent 
occasion of Miss Murdstone's going into a passion. My mother, who 
had been looking at its eyes as it lay upon her lap, said : 

" Davy ! come here ! " and looked at mine. 

I saw Miss Murdstone lay her beads down. 

" I declare," said my mother, gently, " they are exactly alike. I sup- 
pose they are mine. I think they are the color of mine. But they are 
wonderfully alike." 

" What are you talking about, Clara ? " said Miss Murdstone. 

" My dear Jane," faltered my mother, a little abashed by the harsh 
tone of this inquiry, " I find that the baby's eyes and Davy's are exactly 
alike." 

" Clara ! " said Miss Murdstone, rising angrily, " you are a positive 
fool sometimes." 

" My dear Jane," remonstrated my mother. 

"A positive fool," said Miss Murdstone. "Who else could compare 
my brother's baby with your boy ? They are not at all alike. They are 
exactly unlike. They are utterly dissimilar in all respects. I hope they 
will ever remain so. I will not sit here, and hear such comparisons made." 
With that she stalked out, and made the door bang after her. 

In short, I was not a favorite with Miss Murdstone. In short, I was not 
a favorite there with anybody, not even with myself ; for those who did 
like me could not show it, and those who did not, showed it so plainly 
that I had a sensitive consciousness of always appearing constrained, 
boorish, and dull. 

I felt that I made them as uncomfortable as they made me. If I came 
into the room where they were, and they were talking together and my 
mother seemed cheerful, an anxious cloud would steal over her face from 
the moment of my entrance. If Mr. Murdstone were in his best humor, 
I checked him. If Miss Murdstone were in her worst, I intensified it. I 
had perception enough to know that my mother was the victim always ; 
that she was afraid to speak to me or be kind to me, lest she should 
give them some offence by her manner of doing so, and receive a lecture 



86 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

afterwards ; that she was not only ceaselessly afraid of her own offending, 
bnt of my offending, and nneasily watched their looks if I only moved. 
Therefore I resolved to keep myself as much out of their way as I could ; 
and many a wintry hour did I hear the church-clock strike, when I was 
sitting in my cheerless bedroom, wrapped in my little great-coat, poring 
over a book. 

In the evening, sometimes, I went and sat with Peggotty in the kitchen. 
There I was comfortable, and not afraid of being myself. But neither of 
these resources was approved of in the parlor. The tormenting humor 
which was dominant there stopped them both. I was still held to be 
necessary to my poor mother's training, and, as one of her trials, could 
not be suffered to absent myself. 

" David," said Mr. Murdstone, one day after dinner when I was going 
to leave the room as usual ; "I am sorry to observe that you are of a 
sullen disposition." 

"As sulky as a bear !" said Miss Murdstone. 

I stood still, and hung my head. 

" Now, David," said Mr. Murdstone, " a sullen obdurate disposition is, 
of all tempers, the worst." 

" And the boy's is, of all such dispositions that ever I have seen," 
remarked his sister, " the most confirmed and stubborn. I think, my 
dear Clara, even you must observe it ? " 

" I beg your pardon, my dear Jane," said my mother, "but are you 
quite sure — I am certain you '11 excuse me, my dear Jane — that you 
understand Davy ? " 

"I should be somewhat ashamed of myself, Clara," returned Miss 
Murdstone, " if I could not understand the boy, or any boy. I don't 
profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense." 

"No doubt, my dear Jane," returned my mother, "your understanding 
is very vigorous — " 

" Oh dear, no ! Pray don't say that, Clara," interposed Miss Murdstone, 
angrily. 

"But I am sure it is," resumed my mother ; "and everybody knows it 
is. I profit so much by it myself, in many ways — at least I ought to — 
that no one can be more convinced of it than myself; and therefore I 
speak with great diffidence, my dear Jane, I assure you." 

" We '11 say I don't understand the boy, Clara," returned Miss Murd- 
stone, arranging the little fetters on her wrists. " We 'Jl agree, if you 
please, that I don't understand him at all. He is much too deep for 
me. But perhaps my brother's penetration may enable him to have some 
insight into his character. And I believe my brother was speaking on 
the subject when we — not very decently — interrupted him." 

" I think, Clara," said Mr. Murdstone, in a low, grave voice, " that there 
may be better and more dispassionate judges of such a question than you." 

" Edward," replied my mother, timidly, " you are a far better judge of 
all questions than I pretend to be. Both you and Jane are. I only said — " 

" You only said something weak and inconsiderate," he replied. " Try 
not to do it again, my dear Clara, and keep a watch upon yourself." 

My mother's lips moved, as if she answered " Yes, my dear Edward," 
but she said nothing aloud. 

" I was sorry, David, I remarked/' said Mr. Murdstone, turning his head 



OF DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 87 

and his eyes stiffly towards me, " to observe that you are of a sullen disposi- 
tion. This is not a character that I can suffer to develop itself beneath 
my eyes without an effort at improvement. You must endeavour, sir, 
to change it. We must endeavour to change it for you." 

" I beg your pardon, sir," I faltered. " I have never meant to be sullen 
since I came back." 

" Don't take refuge in a lie, sir ! " he returned so fiercely, that I saw 
my mother involuntarily put out her trembling hand as if to interpose 
between us. " You have withdrawn yourself in your sullenness to your 
own room. You have kept your own room when you ought to have been 
here. You know now, once for all, that I require you to be here, and not 
there. Further, that I require you to bring obedience here. You know 
me, David. I will have it done." 

Miss Murdstone gave a hoarse chuckle. 

" I will have a respectful, prompt, and ready bearing towards myself," 
he continued, " and towards Jane Murdstone, and towards your mother. 
I will not have this room shunned as if it were infected, at the pleasure of 
a child. Sit down." 

He ordered me like a dog, and I obeyed like a dog. 

" One thing more," he said. " I observe that you have an attachment 
to low and common company. You are not to associate with servants. 
The kitchen will not improve you, in the many respects in which you need 
improvement. Of the woman who abets you, I say nothing — since you, 
Clara," addressing my mother in a lower voice, "from old associations 
and long-estabbshed fancies, have a weakness respecting her which is not 
yet overcome." 

" A most unaccountable delusion it is ! " cried Miss Murdstone. 

" I only say," he resumed, addressing me, " that I disapprove of your 
preferring such company as Mistress Peggotty, and that it is to be 
abandoned. Now, David, you understand me, and you know what will 
be the consequence if you fail to obey me to the letter." 

I knew well — better perhaps than he thought, as far as my poor mother 
was concerned — and I obeyed him to the letter. I retreated to my own 
room no more ; I took refuge with Peggotty no more ; but sat wearily in 
the parlor day after day, looking forward to night, and bedtime. 

What irksome constraint I underwent, sitting in the same attitude hours 
upon hours, afraid to move an arm or a leg lest Miss Murdstone should 
complain (as she did on the least pretence) of my restlessness, and afraid 
to move an eye lest it should light on some look of dislike or scrutiny that 
would find new cause for complaint in mine ! What intolerable dulness 
to sit listening to the ticking of the clock ; and watching Miss Murdstone's 
little shiny steel beads as she strung them ; and wondering whether she 
would ever be married, and if so, to what sort of unhappy man ; and 
counting the divisions in the moulding on the chimney-piece ; and wan- 
dering away, with my eyes, to the ceiling, among the curls and corkscrews 
in the paper on the wall ! 

What walks I took alone, down muddy lanes, in the bad winter weather, 
carrying that parlor, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone in it, everywhere : a 
monstrous load that I was obliged to bear, a daymare that there was no 
possibility of breaking in, a weight that brooded on my wits, and 
blunted them I 



88 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

What meals I had in silence and embarrassment, always feeling that 
there were a knife and fork too many, and that mine ; an appetite too 
many, and that mine ; a plate and chair too many, and those mine ; a 
somebody too many, and that I ! 

What evenings, when the candles came, and I was expected to employ 
myself, but, not during to read an entertaining book, pored over some 
hard-headed, harder-hearted treatise on arithmetic ; when the tables of 
weights and measures set themselves to tunes, as Eule Britannia, or Away 
with Melancholy ; and wouldn't stand still to be learnt, but would go 
threading my grandmother's needle through my unfortunate head, in at 
one ear and out at the other ! 

What yawns and dozes I lapsed into, in spite of all my care ; what starts 
I came out of concealed sleeps with ; what answers I never got, to little 
observations that I rarely made ; what a blank space I seemed, which 
everybody overlooked, and yet was in everybody's way; what a heavy 
relief it was to hear Miss Murdstone hail the first stroke of nine at night, 
and order me to bed ! 

Thus the holidays lagged away, until the morning came when Miss 
Murdstone said : " Here's the last day off! " and gave me the closing cup 
of tea of the vacation. 

I was not sorry to go. I had lapsed into a stupid state ; but I was 
recovering a little and looking forward to Steerforth, albeit Mr. Creakle 
loomed behind him. Again Mr. Barkis appeared at the gate, and again 
Miss Murdstone in her warning voice said : " Clara ! " when my mother 
bent over me, to bid me farewell. 

I kissed her, and my baby brother, and was very sorry then ; but not 
sorry to go away, for the gulf between us was there, and the parting was 
there, every day. And it is not so much the embrace she gave me, that 
lives in my mind, though it was as fervent as could be, as what followed 
the embrace. 

I was in the carrier's cart when I heard her calling to me. I looked 
out, and she stood at the garden-gate alone, holding her baby up in her 
arms for me to see. It was cold still weather ; and not a hair of her head, 
or a fold of her dress, was stirred, as she looked intently at me, holding up 
her child. 

So I lost her. So I saw her afterwards, in my sleep at school — a 
silent presence near my bed — looking at me with the same intent face — 
holding up her baby in her arms. 



CHAPTER IX. 

I HAVE A MEMORABLE BIRTHDAY. 



I pass over all that happened at school, until the anniversary of my 
birthday came round in March. Except that Steerforth was more to be 
admired than ever, I remember nothing. He was going away at the end 
of the half-year, if not sooner, and was more spirited and independent than 
before in my eyes, and therefore more engaging than before ; but beyond 
this I remember nothing. The great remembrance by which that time is 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 89 

marked in my mind, seems to have swallowed up all lesser recollections, 
and to exist alone. 

It is even difficult for me to believe that there was a gap of full two 
months between my return to Salem House and the arrival of that birth- 
day. I can only understand that the fact was so, because I know it must 
have been so ; otherwise I should feel convinced that there was no 
interval, and that the one occasion trod upon the other's heels. 

How well I recollect the kind of day it was ! I smell the fog that hung 
about the place ; I see the hoar frost, ghostly, through it ; I feel my rimy 
hair fall clammy on my cheek ; I look along the dim perspective of the 
schoolroom, with a sputtering candle here and there to light up the foggy 
morning, and the breath of the boys wreathing and smoking in the raw 
cold as they blow upon their fingers, and tap their feet upon the floor. 

It was after breakfast, and we had been summoned in from the play- 
ground, when Mr. Sharp entered and said : 

"David Copperfield is to go into the parlor." 

I expected a hamper from Peggotty, and brightened at the order. Some 
of the boys about me put in their claim not to be forgotten in the distri- 
bution of the good things, as I got out of my seat with great alacrity. 

" Don't hurry, David," said Mr. Sharp. " There 's time enough, my 
boy, don't hurry." 

I might have been surprised by the feeling tone in which he spoke, if I 
had given it a thought ; but I gave it none until afterwards. I hurried 
away to the parlor; and there I found Mr. Creakle sitting at his breakfast 
with the cane and a newspaper before him, and Mrs. Creakle with an 
opened letter in her hand. But no hamper. 

" David Copperfield," said Mrs. Creakle, leading me to a sofa, and sitting 
down beside me. " I want to speak to you very particularly. I have 
something to tell you, my child." 

Mr. Creakle, at whom of course I looked, shook his head without looking 
at me, and stopped up a sigh with a very large piece of buttered toast. 

" You are too young to know how the world changes every day," said 
Mrs. Creakle, " and how the people in it pass away. But we all have to 
learn it, David ; some of us when we are young, some of us when we are 
old, some of us at all times of our lives." 

I looked at her earnestly. 

" When you came away from home at the end of the vacation," said 
Mrs. Creakle, after a pause, " were they all well? " After another pause, 
" Was your mama well ? " 

I trembled without distinctly knowing why, and still looked at her 
earnestly, making no attempt to answer. 

" Because," said she, " I grieve to tell you that I hear this morning 
your mama is very ill." 

A mist arose between Mrs. Creakle and me, and her figure seemed to 
move in it for an instant. Then I felt the burning tears run down my 
face, and it was steady again. 

" She is very dangerously ill," she added. 

I knew all now. 

" She is dead." 

There was no need to tell me so. I had already broken out into a 
desolate cry, and felt an orphan in the wide world. 



90 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

She was very kind to me. She kept me there all day, and left me 
alone sometimes ; and I cried, and wore myself to sleep, and awoke and 
cried again. When I could cry no more, I began to think ; and then the 
oppression on my breast was heaviest, and my grief a dull pain that there 
was no ease for. 

And yet my thoughts were idle ; not intent on the calamity that weighed 
upon my heart, but idly loitering near it. I thought of our house shut 
up and hushed. I thought of the little baby, who, Mrs. Creakle said, had 
been pining away for some time, and who, they believed, would die too. 
I thought of my father's grave in the churchyard, by our house, and of 
my mother lying there beneath the tree I knew so well. I stood upon 
a chair when I was left alone, and looked into the glass to see how red 
my eyes were, and how sorrowful my face. I considered, after some hours 
were gone, if my tears were really hard to flow now, as they seemed to 
be, what, in connexion with my loss, it would affect me most to think of 
when I drew near home — for I was going home to the funeral, I am 
sensible of having felt that a dignity attached to me among the rest of 
the boys, and that I was important in my affliction. 

If ever child were stricken with sincere grief, I was. But I remember 
that this importance was a kind of satisfaction to me, when I walke'd in 
the playground that afternoon while the boys were in school. When I 
saw them glancing at me out of the windows, as they went up to their 
classes, I felt distinguished, and looked more melancholy, and walked 
slower. When school was over, and they came out and spoke to me, I 
felt it rather good in myself not to be proud to any of them, and to take 
exactly the same notice of them all, as before. 

I was to go home next night ; not by the mail, but by the heavy night- 
coach, which was called the Parmer, and was principally used by country- 
people travelling short intermediate distances upon the road. We had no 
story-telling that evening, and Traddles insisted on lending me his pillow. 
I don't know what good he thought it would do me, for I had one of my 
own : but it was all he had to lend, poor fellow, except a sheet of letter- 
paper full of skeletons ; and that he gave me at parting, as a soother of my 
sorrows and a contribution to my peace of mind. 

I left Salem House upon the morrow afternoon. I little thought then 
that I left it, never to return. We travelled very slowly all night, and 
did not get into Yarmouth before nine or ten o'clock in the morning. 
I looked out for Mr. Barkis, but he was not there ; and instead of him a 
fat, short-winded, merry-looking, little old man in black, with rusty little 
bunches of ribbons at the knees of his breeches, black stockings, and a 
broad-brimmed hat, came puffing up to the coach window, and said : 

"Master CopperMd?" 

" Yes, sir." 

" Will you come with me, young sir, if you please," he said, opening 
the door, " and I shall have the pleasure of taking you home." 

I put my hand in his, wondering who he was, and we walked away to 
a shop in a narrow street, on which was written Omer, Draper, Tailor, 
Haberdasher, Funeral Furnisher, &c. It was a close and stifling 
little shop ; full of all sorts of clothing, made and unmade, including one 
window full of beaver-hats and bonnets. We went into a little back- 
parlor behind the shop, where we found three young women at work on a 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 91 

quantity of black materials, which were heaped upon the table, and little 
bits and cuttings of which were littered all over the floor. There was a 
good fire in the room, and a breathless smell of warm black crape — I did 
not know what the smell was then, but I know now. 

The three young women, who appeared to be very industrious and com- 
fortable, raised their heads to look at me, and then went on with their 
work. Stitch, stitch, stitch. At the same time there came from a work- 
shop across a little yard outside the window, a regular sound of hammering 
that kept a kind of tune : Eat — tat-tat, hat — tat-tat, eat — tat-tat, without 
any variation. 

" Well ! " said my conductor to one of the three young women. " How 
do you get on, Minnie ? " 

" We shall be ready by the trying-on time," she replied gaily, without 
looking up. " Don't you be afraid, father." 

Mr. Omer took off his broad-brimmed hat, and sat down and panted. 
He was so fat that he was obliged to pant some time before he could say : 

" That 's right." 

tc Father ! " said Minnie, playfully. " What a porpoise you do grow ! " 

" Well, I don't know how it is, my dear," he replied, considering about 
it. " I am rather so." 

" You are such a comfortable man, you see," said Minnie. " You take 
things so easy." 

" No use taking 'em otherwise, my dear," said Mr. Omer. 

" No, indeed," returned his daughter. " We are all pretty gay here, 
thank Heaven ! Ain't we, father ? " 

" I hope so, my dear," said Mr. Omer. " As I have got my breath 
now, I think I '11 measure this young scholar. Would you walk into the 
shop, Master Copperfield? " 

I preceded Mr. Omer, in compliance with his request ; and after showing 
me a roll of cloth which he said was extra super, and too good mourning 
for anything short of parents, he took my various dimensions, and put 
them down in a book. While he was recording them he called my atten- 
tion to his stock in trade, and to certain fashions which he said had "just 
come up," and to certain other fashions which he said had "just gone out." 

" And by that sort of thing we very often lose a little mint of money," 
said Mr. Omer. " But fashions are like human beings. They come in, 
nobody knows when, why, or how ; and they go out, nobody knows when, 
why, or how. Everything is like life, in my opinion, if you look at it in 
that point of view." 

I was too sorrowful to discuss the question, which would possibly have 
been beyond me under any circumstances ; and Mr. Omer took me back 
into the parlor, breathing with some difficulty on the way. 

He then called down a little break-neck range of steps behind a 
door : " Bring up that tea and bread-and-butter ! " which, after some 
time, during which I sat looking about me and thinking, and listening 
to the stitching in the room and the tune that was being hammered across 
the yard, appeared on a tray, and turned out to be for me. 

" I have been acquainted with you," said Mr. Omer, after watching me 
for some minutes, during which I had not made much impression on the 
breakfast, for the black things destroyed my appetite, " I have been 
acquainted with you a long time, my young friend." 



92 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Have you, sir ? " 

" All your life," said Mr. Omer. " I may say before it. I knew your 
father before you. He was five foot nine and a half, and he lays in five 
and twen-ty foot of ground." 

"Eat — tat-tat, rat — tat-tat, rat — tat-tat," across the yard. 

" He lays in five and twen-ty foot of ground, if he lays in a fraction," 
said Mr. Omer, pleasantly. " It was either his request or her direction, I 
forget which." 

" Do you know how my little brother is, sir ? " I inquired. 

Mr. Omer shook his head. 

" Eat — tat-tat, rat — tat-tat, rat — tat-tat." 

" He is in his mother's arms," said he. 

" Oh, poor little fellow ! Is he dead ? " 

" Don't mind it more than you can help," said Mr. Omer. " Yes. 
The baby 's dead." 

My wounds broke out afresh at this intelligence. I left the scarcely- 
tasted breakfast, and went and rested my head on another table in a corner 
of the little room, which Minnie hastily cleared, lest I should spot the 
mourning that was lying there with my tears. She was a pretty good- 
natured girl, and put my hair away from my eyes with a soft kind touch ; 
but she was very cheerful at having nearly finished her work and being in 
good time, and was so different from me ! 

Presently the tune left off, and a good-looking young fellow came across 
the yard into the room. He had a hammer in his hand, and his mouth was 
full of little nails, which he was obliged to take out before he could speak. 

" Well, Joram ! " said Mr. Omer. " How do you get on ? " 

"All right," said Joram. "Done, sir." 

Minnie colored a little, and the other two girls smiled at one another. 

" What ! you were at it by candle-light last night, when I was at the 
club, then? Were you ? " said Mr. Omer, shutting up one eye. 

" Yes," said Joram. " As you said we could make a little trip of it, 
and go over together, if it was done, Minnie and me — and you." 

" Oh ! I thought you were going to leave me out altogether," said Mr. 
Omer, laughing till he coughed. 

" — As you was so good as to say that," resumed the young man, 
" why I turned to with a will, you see. Will you give me your opinion 
of it?" 

"I will," said Mr. Omer, rising. "My dear;" and he stopped and 
turned to me ; " would you like to see your " 

" No, father," Minnie interposed. 

"I thought it might be agreeable, my dear," said Mr. Omer. "But 
perhaps you're right." 

I can't say how I knew it was my dear, dear mother's coffin that they went 
to look at. I had never heard one making ; I had never seen one that I 
know of: but it came into my mind what the noise was, while it was 
going on ; and when the young man entered, I am sure I knew what he 
had been doing. 

The work being now finished, the two girls, whose names I had not 
heard, brushed the shreds and threads from their dresses, and went into 
the shop to put that to rights, and wait for customers. Minnie stayed 
behind to fold up what they had made, and pack it in two baskets. This 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 93 

she did upon her knees, humming a lively little tune the while. Joram, 
who I had no doubt was her lover, came in and stole a kiss from her 
while she was busy (he didn't appear to mind me, at all), and said her 
father was gone for the chaise, and he must make haste and get himself 
ready. Then he went out again; and then she put her thimble and 
scissors in her pocket, and stuck a needle threaded with black thread 
neatly in the bosom of her gown, and put on her outer clothing smartly, 
at a little glass behind the door, in which I saw the reflection of her 
pleased face. 

All this I observed, sitting at the table in the corner with my head 
leaning on my hand, and my thoughts running on very different things. 
The chaise soon came round to the front of the shop, and the baskets 
being put in first, I was put in next, and those three followed. I remember 
it as a kind of half chaise-cart, half piano-forte van, painted of a 
sombre color, and drawn by a black horse with a long tail. There was 
plenty of room for us all. 

I do not think I have ever experienced so strange a feeling in my life 
(I am wiser now, perhaps) as that of being with them, remembering how 
they had been employed, and seeing them enjoy the ride. I was not 
angry with them ; I was more afraid of them, as if I were cast away among 
creatures with whom I had no community of nature. They were very 
cheerful. The old man sat in front to drive, and the two young people 
sat behind him, and whenever he spoke to them leaned forward, the one 
on one side of his chubby face and the other . on the other, and made a 
great deal of him. They would have talked to me too, but I held back, 
and moped in my corner ; scared by their love-making and hilarity, though 
it was far from boisterous, and almost wondering that no judgment came 
upon them for their hardness of heart. 

So, when they stopped to bait the horse, and ate and drank and enjoyed 
themselves, I could touch nothing that they touched, but kept my fast 
unbroken. So, when we reached home, I dropped out of the chaise behind, 
as quickly as possible, that I might not be in their company before those 
solemn windows, looking blindly on me like closed eyes once bright. And 
oh, how little need I had had to think what would move me to tears 
when I came back — seeing the window of my mother's room, and next it 
that which, in the better time, was mine ! 

I was in Peggotty's arms before I got to the door, and she took me 
into the house. Her grief burst out when she first saw me ; but she 
controuled it soon, and spoke in whispers, and walked softly, as if the 
dead could be disturbed. She had not been in bed, I found, for a long- 
time. She sat up at night still, and watched. As long as her poor dear 
pretty was above the ground, she said, she would never desert her. 

Mr. Murdstone took no heed of me when I went into the parlor where 
he was, but sat by the fireside, weeping silently, and pondering in his 
elbow-chair. Miss Murdstone, who was busy at her writing-desk, which 
was covered with letters and papers, gave me her cold finger-nails, and 
asked me, in an iron whisper, if I had been measured for my mourning. 

I said: "Yes." 

" And your shirts," said Miss Murdstone ; " have you brought 'em 
home ? " 

" Yes, ma'am. I have brought home all my clothes.' 



94 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

This was all the consolation that her firmness administered to me. I 
do not doubt that she had a choice pleasure in exhibiting what she called 
her self-command, and her firmness, and her strength of mind, and her 
common sense, and the whole diabolical catalogue of her unamiable 
qualities, on such an occasion. She was particularly proud of her turn for 
business ; and she showed it now in reducing everything to pen and ink, 
and being moved by nothing. All the rest of that clay, and from morning 
to night afterwards, she sat at that desk ; scratching composedly with a 
hard pen, speaking in the same imperturbable whisper to everybody; 
never relaxing a muscle of her face, or softening a tone of her voice, or 
appearing with an atom of her dress astray. 

Her brother took a book sometimes, but never read it that I saw. He 
would open it and look at it as if he were reading, but would remain for a 
whole horn without turning the leaf, and then put it down and walk to 
and fro in the room. I used to sit with folded hands watching him, and 
counting his footsteps, hour after hour. He very seldom spoke to her, 
and never to me. He seemed to be the only restless thing, except the 
clocks, in the whole motionless house. 

In these days before the funeral, I saw but little of Peggotty, except 
that, in passing up or down stairs, I always found her close to the room 
where my mother and her baby lay, and except that she came to me every 
night, and sat by my bed's head while I went to sleep. A day or two 
before the burial — I think it was a day or two before, but I am conscious 
of confusion in my mind about that heavy time, with nothing to mark its 
progress — she took me into the room. I only recollect that underneath 
some white covering on the bed, with a beautiful cleanliness and freshness 
all around it, there seemed to me to lie embodied the solemn stillness 
that was in the house ; and that when she would have turned the cover 
gently back, I cried : " Oh no ! oh no ! " and held her hand. 

If the funeral had been yesterday, I could not recollect it better. The 
very air of the best parlor, when I went in at the door, the bright condi- 
tion of the fire, the shining of the wine in the decanters, the patterns of 
the glasses and plates, the faint sweet smell of cake, the odour of 
Miss Murdstone's dress, and our black clothes. Mr. Chillip is in the 
room, and comes to speak to me. 

" And how is Master David ? " he says, kindly. 

I cannot tell him very well. I give him my hand, which he holds in his. 

"Dear me ! " says Mr. Chillip, meekly smiling, with something slrining 
in his eye. " Our little friends grow up around us. They grow out of 
our knowledge, ma'am ?" 

This is to Miss Murd stone, who makes no reply. 

" There is a great improvement here, ma'am? " says Mr. Chillip. 

Miss Murdstone merely answers with a frown and a formal bend; 
Mr. Chillip, discomfited, goes into a corner, keeping me with him, and 
opens his mouth no more. 

I remark this, because I remark everything that happens, not because 
I care about myself, or have done since I came home. And now the bell 
begins to sound, and Mr. Omer and another come to make us ready. As 
Peggotty was wont to tell me, long ago, the followers of my father to the 
same grave were made ready in the same room. 

There are Mr, Murdstone, our neighbour .Mr. Grayper, Mi\ Chillip, audi. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 95 

When we go out to the door, the Bearers and their load are in the 
garden ; and they move before us down the path, and past the elms, and 
through the gate, and into the church-yard where I have so often heard 
the birds sing on a summer morning. 

We stand around the grave. The day seems different to me from every 
other day, and the light not of the same color — of a sadder color. Now 
there is a solemn hush, which we have brought from home with what is 
resting in the mould ; and while we stand bare-headed, I hear the voice of 
the clergyman, sounding remote in the open air, and yet distinct and 
plain, saying : "I am the Eesurrection and the Life, saith the Lord ! " 
Then I hear sobs; and, standing apart among the lookers-on, I see that 
good and faithful servant, whom of all the people upon earth I love the 
best, and unto whom my childish heart is certain that the Lord will one 
day say: "Well done. 35 * 

There are many faces that I know, among the little crowd ; faces that 
I knew in church, when mine was always wondering there ; faces that first 
saw my mother, when she came to the village in her youthful bloom. I do 
not mind them — I mind nothing but my grief— and yet I see and know 
them all ; and even in the background, far away, see Minnie looking on, 
and her eye glancing on her sweetheart, who is near me. 

It is over, and the earth is filled in, and we turn to come away. Before 
us stands our house, so pretty and unchanged, so linked in my mind with 
the young idea of what is gone, that all my sorrow has been nothing to 
the sorrow it calls forth. But they take me on ; and Mr. Chillip talks to me ; 
and when we get home, puts some water to my lips ; and when I ask his 
leave to go up to my room, dismisses me with the gentleness of a woman. 

All this, I say, is yesterday's event. Events of later date have floated 
from me to the shore where all forgotten tilings will reappear, but this 
stands like a high rock in the ocean. 

I knew that Peggotty would come to me in my room. The Sabbath 
stillness of the time (the day was so like Sunday ! I have forgotten that) 
was suited to us both. She sat down by my side upon my little bed ; 
and holding my hand, and sometimes putting it to her lips, and sometimes 
smoothing it with hers, as she might have comforted my little brother, 
told me, in her way, all that she had to tell concerning what had happened. 

" She was never well," said Peggotty, " for a long time. She was 
uncertain in her mind, and not happy. When her baby was born, I 
thought at first she would get better, but she was more delicate, and sunk 
a little every day. She used to like to sit alone before her baby came, and 
then she cried ; but afterwards she used to sing to it — so soft, that I once 
thought, when I heard her, it was like a voice up in the air, that was rising 
away. 

" I think she got to be more timid, and more frightened-like, of late ; and 
that a hard word was like a blow to her. But she was always the same to 
me. She never changed to her foolish Peggotty, didn't my sweet girl." 

Here Peggotty stopped, and softly beat upon my hand a little while. 

" The last time that I saw her like her own old self, was the night when 
you came home, my dear. The day you went away, she said to me, ' I 
never shall see my pretty darling again. Something tells me so, that tells 
the truth. I know.' 



96 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" She tried to hold up after that ; and many a time, when they told her 
she was thoughtless and light-hearted, made believe to be so ; but it was 
all a bygone then. She never told her husband what she had told me — 
she was afraid of saying it to anybody else — till one night, a little more 
than a week before it happened, when she said to him : * My dear, I think 
I am dying.' 

" ' It 's off my mind now, Peggotty,' she told me, when I laid her in her 
bed that night. • He will believe it more and more, poor fellow, every day 
for a few days to come ; and then it will be past. I am very tired. If this 
is sleep, sit by me while I sleep : don't leave me. God bless both my 
children ! God protect and keep my fatherless boy ! ' 

" I never left her afterwards," said Peggotty. " She often talked to 
them two down stairs — for she loved them ; she couldn't bear not to love 
any one who was about her — but when they went away from her bedside, 
she always turned to me, as if there was rest where Peggotty was, and 
never fell asleep in any other way. 

" On the last night, in the evening, she kissed me, and said : ' If my 
baby should die too, Peggotty, please let them lay him in my arms, and 
bury us together.' (It was done ; for the poor lamb lived but a day beyond 
her.) ' Let my dearest boy go with us to our resting-place,' she said, ' and 
tell him that his mother, when she lay here, blessed him not once, but a 
thousand times.' " 

Another silence followed this, and another gentle beating on my hand. 

" It was pretty far in the night," said Peggotty, " when she asked me 
for some drink ; and when she had taken it, gave me such a patient smile, 
the dear ! — so beautiful ! — 

" Daybreak had come, and the sun was rising, when she said to me, 
how kind and considerate Mr. Copperfield had always been to her, and how 
he had borne with her, and told her, when she doubted herself, that a 
loving heart was better and stronger than wisdom, and that he was a 
happy man in hers. ' Peggotty, my dear,' she said then, ' put me nearer 
to you,' for she was very weak. ' Lay your good arm underneath my neck,' 
she said, ' and turn me to you, for your face is going far off, and I want it 
to be near.' I put it as she asked ; and oh Davy ! the time had come 
when my first parting words to you were true — when she was glad to 
lay her poor head on her stupid cross old Peggotty's arm — and she died 
like a child that had gone to sleep ! " 

Thus ended Peggotty's narration. From the moment of my knowing 
of the death of my mother, the idea of her as she had been of late had 
vanished from me. I remembered her, from that instant, only as the young 
mother of my earliest impressions, who had been used to wind her bright 
curls round and round her finger, and to dance with me at twilight in the 
parlor. What Peggotty had told me now, was so far from bringing me back 
to the later period, that it rooted the earlier image in my mind. It may 
be curious, but it is true. In her death she winged her way back to her 
calm untroubled youth, and cancelled all the rest. 

The mother who lay in the grave, was the mother of my infancy ; the 
little creature in her arms, was myself, as I had once been, hushed for ever 
on her bosom. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 97 

CHAPTER X. 

I BECOME NEGLECTED, AND AM PROVIDED FOR. 

The first act of business Miss Murdstone performed when the day of 
the solemnity was over, and light was freely admitted into the house, was 
to give Peggotty a month's warning. Much as Peggotty would have dis- 
liked such a service, I believe she would have retained it, for my sake, in 
preference to the best upon earth. She told me we must part, and told 
me why ; and we condoled with one another, in all sincerity. 

As to me or my future, not a word was said, or a step taken. Happy 
they would have been, I dare say, if they could have dismissed me at a 
month's warning too. I mustered courage once, to ask Miss Murdstone 
when I was going back to school ; and she answered dryly, she believed I 
was not going back at all. I was told nothing more. I was very anxious 
to know what was going to be done with me, and so was Peggotty ; but 
neither she nor I could pick up any information on the subject. 

There was one change in my condition, which, while it relieved me of a 
great deal of present uneasiness, might have made me, if I had been 
capable of considering it closely, yet more uncomfortable about the future. 
It was this. The constraint that had been put upon me, was quite aban- 
doned. I was so far from being required to keep my dull post in the 
parlor, that on several occasions, when I took my seat there, Miss Murd- 
stone frowned to me to go away. I was so far from being warned off 
from Peggotty's society, that, provided I was not in Mr. Murdstone's, I 
was never sought out or inquired for. At first I was in daily dread of 
his taking my education in hand again, or of Miss Murdstone's devoting 
herself to it ; but I soon began to think that such fears were groundless, 
and that all I had to anticipate was neglect. 

I do not conceive that this discovery gave me much pain then. I was 
still giddy with the shock of my mother's death, and in a kind of stunned 
state as to all tributary things. I can recollect, indeed, to have speculated, 
at odd times, on the possibility of my not being taught any more, or cared 
for any more ; and growing up to be a shabby moody man, lounging an 
idle life away, about the village ; as well as on the feasibility of my getting 
rid of this picture by going away somewhere, like the hero in a story, 
to 'seek my fortune : but these were transient visions, day dreams I sat 
looking at sometimes, as if they were faintly painted or written on the 
wall of my room, and which, as they melted away, left the wall blank 
again. 

" Peggotty," I said in a thoughtful whisper, one evening, when I was 
warming my hands at the kitchen fire, " Mr. Murdstone likes me less than 
he used to. He never liked me much, Peggotty; but he would rather not 
even see me now, if he can help it." 

" Perhaps it 's his sorrow," said Peggotty, stroking my hair. 

" I am sure, Peggotty, I am sorry too. If I believed it was his sorrow, 
I should not think of it at all. But it 's not that ; oh, no, it 's not that." 

H 



98 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" How do you know it 's not that ? " said Peggotty, after a silence. 

" Oh, his sorrow is another and quite a different thing. He is sorry at 
this moment, sitting by the fireside with Miss Murdstone ; but if I was to 
go in, Peggotty, he would be something besides." 

" What would he be ? " said Peggotty. 

" Angry," I answered, with an involuntary imitation of his dark frown. 
" If he was only sorry, he wouldn't look at me as he does. I am only 
sorry, and it makes me feel kinder." 

Peggotty said nothing for a little while ; and I warmed my hands, as 
silent as she. 

" Davy," she said at length. 

« Yes, Peggotty?" 

" I have tried, my dear, all ways I could think of — all the ways there 
are, and all the ways there ain't, in short — to get a suitable service here, 
in Blunderstone ; but there 's no such a thing, my love." 

" And what do you mean to do, Peggotty?" says I, wistfully. " Do 
you mean to go and seek your fortune ? " 

" I expect I shall be forced to go to Yarmouth," replied Peggotty, " and 
live there." 

" You might have gone farther off," I said, brightening a little, " and 
been as bad as lost. I shall see you sometimes, my dear old Peggotty, 
there. You won't be quite at the other end of the world, will you ?" 

" Contrary ways, please God ! " cried Peggotty, with great animation. 
" As long as you are here, my pet, I shall come over every week of my 
life to see you. One day, every week of my life !" 

I felt a great weight taken off my mind by this promise ; but even this 
was not all, for Peggotty went on to say : 

"Tina going, Davy, you see, to my brother's, first, for another fort- 
night's visit — just till I have had time to look about me, and get to be 
something like myself again. Now, I have been thinking, that perhaps, as 
they don't want you here at present, you might be let to go along with 
me." 

If anything, short of being in a different relation to every one about 
me, Peggotty excepted, could have given me a sense of pleasure at that 
time, it would have been this project of all others. The idea of being 
again surrounded by those honest faces, shining welcome on me ; of re- 
newing the peacefulness of the sweet Sunday morning, when the bells 
were ringing, the stones dropping in the water, and the shadowy ships 
breaking through the mist ; of roaming up and down with little Em'ly, 
telling her my troubles, and finding charms against them in the shells and 
pebbles on the beach ; made a calm in my heart. It was ruffled next 
moment, to be sure, by a doubt of Miss Murdstone's giving her consent ; 
but even that was set at rest soon, for she came out to take an evening 
grope in the store-closet while we were yet in conversation, and Peggotty, 
with a boldness that amazed me, broached the topic on the spot. 

" The boy will be idle there," said Miss Murdstone, looking into a 
pickle-jar, " and idleness is the root of all evil. But, to be sure, he would 
be idle here — or anywhere, in my opinion." 

Peggotty had an angry answer ready, I could see ; but she swallowed it 
for my sake, and remained silent. 

" Humph ! " said Miss Murdstone, still keeping her eye on the pickles ; 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 99 

" it is of more importance thau anything else- — it is of paramount import- 
ance — that my brother should not be disturbed or made uncomfortable. 
1 suppose I had better say yes." 

I thanked her, without making any demonstration of joy, lest it should 
induce her to withdraw her assent. Nor could I help thinking this a 
prudent course, when she looked at me out of the pickle-jar, with as great 
an access of sourness as if her black eyes had absorbed its contents. 
However, the permission was given, and was never retracted ; for when the 
month was out, Peggotty and I were ready to depart. 

Mr. Barkis came into the house for Peggotty 's boxes. I had never 
known him to pass the garden-gate before, but on this occasion he came 
into the house. And he gave me a look as he shouldered the largest box 
and went out, which I thought had meaning in it, if meaning could ever 
be said to find its way into Mr. Barkis's visage. 

Peggotty was naturally in low spirits at leaving what had been her 
home so many years, and where the two strong attachments of her life — 
for my mother and myself — had been formed. She had been walking in 
the churchyard, too, very early ; and she got into the cart, and sat in it 
with her handkerchief at her eyes. 

So long as she remained in this condition, Mr. Barkis gave no sign 
of life whatever. He sat in his usual place and attitude, like a great 
stuffed figure. But when she began to look about her, and to speak to 
me, he nodded his head and grinned several times. I have not the least 
notion at whom, or what he meant by it. 

" It 's a beautiful day, Mr. Barkis ! " I said, as an act of politeness. 

" It ain't bad," said Mr. Barkis, who generally qualified his speech, and 
rarely committed himself. 

" Peggotty is quite comfortable now, Mr. Barkis," I remarked, for his 
satisfaction. 

" Is she, though ! " said Mr. Barkis. 

After reflecting about it, with a sagacious air, Mr. Barkis eyed her, and 
said: 

"Are you pretty comfortable ? " 

Peggotty laughed, and answered in the affirmative. 

" But really and truly, you know. Are you ? " growled Mr. Barkis, 
sliding nearer to her on the seat, and nudging her with his elbow. " Are 
you? Really and truly pretty comfortable? Are you? Eh?" At each of these 
inquiries Mr. Barkis shuffled nearer to her, and gave her another nudge; 
so that at last we were all crowded together in the left-hand corner of the 
cart, and I was so squeezed that I could hardly bear it. 

Peggotty calling his attention to my sufferings, Mr. Barkis gave me 
a little more room at once, and got away by degrees. But 
I could not help observing that he seemed to think he had hit upon a 
wonderful expedient for expressing himself in a neat, agreeable, and 
pointed manner, without the inconvenience of inventing conversation. He 
manifestly chuckled over it for some time. By-and-by he turned to 
Peggotty again, and repeating, " Are you pretty comfortable though ? " 
bore down upon us as before, until the breath was nearly wedged out of 
my body. By-and-by he made another descent upon us with the same 
inquiry, and the same result. At length, I got up whenever I saw him 

H 2 



100 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

coming, and standing on the footboard, pretended to look at the prospect ; 
after which I did very well. 

He was so polite as to stop at a public-house, expressly on our 
account, and entertain us with broiled mutton and beer. Even when 
Peggotty was in the act of drinking, he was seized with one of those 
approaches, and almost choked her. But as we drew nearer to the end 
of our journey, he had more to do and less time for gallantry ; and when 
we got on Yarmouth pavement, we were all too much shaken and jolted, 
I apprehend, to have any leisure for any thing else. 

Mr. Peggotty and Ham waited for us at the old place. They received 
me and Peggotty in an affectionate manner, and shook hands with Mr. 
Barkis, who, with his hat on the very back of his head, and a shame-faced 
leer upon his countenance, and pervading his very legs, presented but a 
vacant appearance, I thought. They each took one of Peggotty's trunks, 
and we were going away, when Mr. Earkis solemnly made a sign to me 
with his forefinger to come under an archway. 

" I say," growled Mr. Barkis, "it was all right." 

I looked up into his face, and answered, with an attempt to be very 
profound: "Oh!" 

" It didn't come to a end there," said Mr. Earkis, nodding con- 
fidentially. " It was all right." 

Again I answered : " Oh ! " 

" You know who was willin'," said my friend. "It was Barkis, and 
Barkis only." 

I nodded assent. 

" It 's all right," said Mr. Barkis, shaking hands ; " I 'm a friend of 
your'n. You made it all right, first. It 's all right." 

In his attempts to be particularly lucid, Mr. Barkis was so extremely 
mysterious, that I might have stood looking in his face for an hour, and 
most assuredly should have got as much information out of it as out of 
the face of a clock that had stopped, but for Peggotty's calling me away. 
As we were going along, she asked me what he had said ; and I told her 
he had said it was all right. 

"Like his impudence," said Peggotty, "but I don't mind that! 
Davy dear, what should you think if I was to think of being married ? " 

" Why — I suppose you would like me as much then, Peggotty, as you 
do now ? " I returned, after a little consideration. 

Greatly to the astonishment of the passengers in the street, as well as 
of her relations going on before, the good soul was obliged to stop and 
embrace me on the spot, with many protestations of her unalterable love. 

" Tell me what should you say, darling ? " she asked again, when this 
was over, and we were walking on. 

" If you were thinking of being married — to Mr. Barkis, Peggotty ? " 

" Y'es," said Peggotty. 

" I should think it would be a very good thing. Por then you know, 
Peggotty, you would always have the horse and cart to bring you over to 
see me, and could come for nothing, and be sure of coming." 

" The sense of the dear ! " cried Peggotty. " What I have been 
thinking of, this month back ! Yes, my precious ; and I think I should 
be more independent altogether, you see ; let alone my working with a 
better heart in my own house, than I could in anybody else 's now. I 



OF DAVID COPPERPIELD. 101 

don't know what I might be fit for, now, as a servant to a stranger. 
And I shall be always near my pretty's resting-place," said Peggotty 
musing, " and able to see it when I like ; and when I lie down to rest, I 
may be laid not far off from my darling girl ! " 

We neither of us said anything for a little while. 

" But I wouldn't so much as give it another thought," said Peggotty, 
cheerily, " if my Davy was anyways against it — not if I had been asked 
in church thirty times three times over, and was wearing out the ring in 
my pocket." 

" Look at me, Peggotty," I replied ; " and see if I am not really glad, 
and don't truly wish it ! " As indeed I did, with all my heart. 

" Well, my life," said Peggotty, giving me a squeeze, " I have thought of 
it night and day, every way I can, and I hope the right way ; but I '11 think 
of it again, and speak to my brother about it, and in the meantime we '11 keep 
it to ourselves, Davy, you and me. Barkis is a good plain creetur'," said Peg- 
gotty, " and if I tried to do my duty by him, I think it would be my fault if 
I wasn't — if I wasn't pretty comfortable," said Peggotty, laughing heartily. 

This quotation from Mr. Barkis was so appropriate, and tickled us both 
so much, that we laughed again and again, and were quite in a pleasant 
humour when we came within view of Mr. Peggotty 's cottage. 

It looked just the same, except that it may, perhaps, have shrunk a little 
in my eyes ; and Mrs. Gummidge was waiting at the door as if she had 
stood there ever since. All within was the same, down to the seaweed in 
the blue mug in my bedroom. I went into the out-house to look about 
me ; and the very same lobsters, crabs, and crawfish possessed by the same 
desire to pinch the world in general, appeared to be in the same state of 
conglomeration in the same old corner. 

But there was no little Em'ly to be seen, so I asked Mr. Peggotty 
where she was. 

" She 's at school, sir," said Mr. Peggotty, wiping the heat consequent 
on the porterage of Peggotty's box from his forehead ; " she '11 be home," 
looking at the Dutch clock, "in from twenty minutes to half-an-hour's 
time. We all on us feel the loss of her, bless ye !" 

Mrs. Gummidge moaned. 

" Cheer up, Mawther ! " cried Mr. Peggotty. 

"I feel it more than anybody else," said Mrs. Gummidge; "I'm a 
lone lorn creetur', and she used to be a'most the only think that didn't go 
contrairy with me." 

Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head, applied herself to 
blowing the fire. Mr. Peggotty, looking round upon us while she was so 
engaged, said in a low voice, which he shaded with his hand : " The old 
'un!" Prom this I rightly conjectured that no improvement had taken 
place since my last visit in the state of Mrs. Gummidge's spirits. 

Now, the whole place was, or it should have been, quite as delightful a 
place as ever ; and yet it did not impress me in the same way. I felt 
rather disappointed with it. Perhaps it was because little Em'ly was not 
at home. I knew the way by which she would come, and presently found 
myself strolling along the path to meet her. 

A figure appeared in the distance before long, and I soon knew it to be 
Em'ly, who was a little creature still in stature, though she was grown. But 
w hen she drew nearer, and I saw her blue eyes looking bluer, and her dimpled 



102 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

face looking brighter, and her whole self prettier and gayer, a curious 
feeling came over me that made me pretend not to know her, and pass by 
as if I were looking at something a long way off. I have done such a 
thing since in later life, or I am mistaken. 

Little Em'ly didn't care a bit. She saw me well enough ; but instead of 
turning round and calling after me, ran away laughing. This obliged me 
to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near the cottage 
before I caught her. 

" Oh, it 's you, is it ? " said little Em'ly. 

" Why, you knew who it was, Em'ly," said I. 

" And didn't you know who it was ?" said Em'ly. I was going to kiss 
her, but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said she wasn't a 
baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into the house. 

She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her I won- 
dered at very much. The tea-table was readjr, and our little locker 
was put out in its old place, but instead of coming to sit by me, she went 
and bestowed her company upon that grumbling Mrs. Gummidge : and 
on Mr. Peggotty's inquiring why, rumpled her hair all over her face to 
hide it, and would do nothing but laugh. 

" A little puss, it is! " said Mr. Peggotty, patting her with his great hand. 

" So sh' is ! so sh' is ! " cried Ham. " Mas'r Davy bo', so sh' is ! " 
and he sat and chuckled at her for some time, in a state of mingled admira- 
tion and delight, that made his face a burning red. 

Little Em'ly was spoiled by them all, in fact ; and by no one more than 
Mr. Peggotty himself, whom she could have coaxed into anything, by only 
going and laying her cheek against his rough whisker. That was my opinion, 
at least, when I saw her do it ; and I held Mr. Peggotty to be thoroughly 
in the right. But she was so affectionate and sweet-natured, and had such 
a pleasant manner of being both sly and shy at once, that she captivated 
me more than ever. 

She was tender-hearted, too ; for when, as we sat round the fire after tea, 
an allusion was made by Mr. Peggotty over his pipe to the loss I had sus- 
tained, the tears stood in her eyes, and she looked at me so kindly across 
the table, that I felt quite thankful to her. 

" Ah ! " said Mr. Peggotty, taking up her curls, and running them over 
his hand like water, " here 's another orphan, you see, sir. And here," 
said Mr. Peggotty, giving Ham a back-handed knock in the chest, " is 
another of 'em, though he don't look much like it." 

" If I had you for my guardian, Mr. Peggotty," said I, shaking my head, 
" I don't think I should /<?eZ much like it." 

" Well said, Mas'r Davy bo' ! " cried Ham, in an ecstasy. " Hoorah ! 
Well said ! Nor more you wouldn't ! Hor ! Hor ! " — Here he returned 
Mr. Peggotty's back-hander, and little Em'ly got up and kissed Mr. 
Peggotty. 

" And how 's your friend, sir ? " said Mr. Peggotty to me. 

" Steerforth ? "■ said I. 

" That 's the name ! " cried Mr. Peggotty, turning to Ham. " I knowed 
it was something in our way." 

" You said it was Eudderford," observed Ham, laughing. 

" Well ? " retorted Mr. Peggotty. " And ye steer with a rudder, 
don't ye ? It ain't fur off. How is he, sir ? " 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 103 

* c He was very well indeed when I came away, Mr. Peggotty." 

" There 's a friend ! " said Mr. Peggotty, stretching out his pipe. 
" There 's a friend, if you talk of friends I Why, Lord love my heart 
alive, if it ain't a treat to look at him ! " 

" He is very handsome, is he not ? " said I, my heart warming with this 
praise. 

" Handsome ! " cried Mr. Peggotty. " He stands up to you like — like a 
« — why, I don't know what he don't stand up to you like. He's so 
bold ! " 

" Yes ! That 's just his character," said I. " He 's as brave as a lion, 
and you can't think how frank he is, Mi*. Peggotty." 

" And I do suppose, now," said Mr. Peggotty, looking at me through 
the smoke of his pipe, " that in the way of book-learning he 'd take the 
wind out of a'most anything." 

" Yes," said I, delighted ; " he knows everything. He is astonishingly 
clever." 

" There's a friend ! " murmured Mr. Peggotty, with a grave toss of his 
head. 

"Nothing seems to cost him any trouble," said I. " He knows a task 
if he only looks at it. He is the best cricketer you ever saw. He will give 
you almost as many men as you like at draughts, and beat you easily." 

Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say : "Of 
course he will." 

" Pie is such a speaker," I pursued, " that he can win anybody over ; 
and I don't know what you 'd say if you were to hear him sing, Mr. 
Peggotty." 

Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say : " I have 
no doubt of it." 

" Then, he 's such a generous, fine, noble fellow," said I, quite carried 
away by my favorite theme, " that it 's hardly possible to give him as 
much praise as he deserves. I am sure I can never feel thankful enough 
for the generosity with which he has protected me, so much younger and 
lower in the school than himself." 

I was running on, very fast indeed, when my eyes rested on little Em'ly's 
face, which was bent forward over the table, listening with the deepest 
attention, her breath held, her blue eyes sparkling like jewels, and the 
color mantling in her cheeks. She looked so extraordinarily earnest and 
pretty, that I stopped in a sort of wonder ; and they all observed her at 
the same time, for, as I stopped, they laughed and looked at her. 

" Em'ly is like me," said Peggotty, " and would like to see him." 

Em'ly was confused by our all observing her, and hung down her head, 
and her face was covered with blushes. Glancing up presently through 
her stray curls, and seeing that we were all looking at her still (I am 
sure, I, for one, could have looked at her for hours), she ran away, and 
kept away till it was nearly bedtime. 

I lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat, and the wind 
came moaning on across the flat as it had done before. But I could not 
help fancying, now, that it moaned of those who were gone ; and instead 
of thinking that the sea might rise in the night and float the boat away, 
I thought of the sea that had risen, since I last heard those sounds, and 
drowned jmy happy home. I recollect, as the wind and water began to 



r* 



104 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

sound fainter in my ears, putting a short clause into my prayers, petitioning 
that I might grow up to marry little Em'ly, and so dropping lovingly asleep. 

The days passed pretty much as they had passed before, except — it 
was a great exception — that little Em'ly and I seldom wandered on the 
beach now. She had tasks to learn, and needle-work to do ; and was 
absent during a great part of each day. But I felt that we should not have 
had those old wanderings, even if it had been otherwise. Wild and full 
of childish whims as Em'ly was, she was more of a little woman than I 
had supposed. She seemed to have got a great distance away from me, 
in little more than a year. She liked me, but she laughed at me, and 
tormented me ; and when I went to meet her, stole home another way, and 
was laughing at the door when I came back, disappointed. The best 
times were when she sat quietly at work in the doorway, and I sat on the 
wooden step at her feet, reading to her. It seems to me, at this hour, that 
I have never seen such sunlight as on those bright April afternoons ; that 
I have never seen such a sunny little figure as I used to see, sitting in 
the doorway of the old boat ; that I have never beheld such sky, such 
water, such glorified ships sailing away into golden air. 

On the very first evening after our arrival, Mr. Barkis appeared in an 
exceedingly vacant and awkward condition, and with a bundle of oranges 
tied up in a handkerchief. As he made no allusion of any kind to this 
property, he was supposed to have left it behind him by accident when he 
went away ; until Ham, running after him to restore it, came back with 
the information that it was intended for Peggotty. After that occasion he 
appeared every evening at exactly the same hour, and always with a little 
bundle, to which he never alluded, and which he regularly put behind the 
door, and left there. These offerings of affection were of a most various 
and eccentric description. Among them I remember a double set of 
pig's trotters, a huge pin-cushion, half a bushel or so of apples, a pair of 
jet earrings, some Spanish onions, a box of dominoes, a canary bird and 
cage, and a leg of pickled pork. 

Mr. Barkis's wooing, as I remember it, was altogether of a peculiar 
kind. He very seldom said anything ; but would sit by the fire in much the 
same attitude as he sat in, in his cart, and stare heavily at Peggotty, who 
was opposite. One night, being, as I suppose, inspired by love, he made a 
dart at the bit of wax-candle she kept for her thread, and put it in his 
waistcoat-pocket and carried it off. After that, his great delight was to 
produce it when it was wanted, sticking to the lining of his pocket, in a 
partially-melted state, and pocket it again when it was done with. He 
seemed to enjoy himself very much, and not to feel at all called upon to 
talk. Even when he took Peggotty out for a walk on the flats, he had no 
uneasiness on that head, I believe ; contenting himself with now and then 
asking her if she was pretty comfortable; and I remember that sometimes, 
after he was gone, Peggotty would throw her apron over her face, and 
laugh for half-an-hour. Indeed, we were all more or less amused, ex- 
cept that miserable Mrs. Gummidge, whose courtship would appear to 
have been of an exactly parallel nature, she was so continually reminded 
by these transactions of the old one. 

At length, when the term of my visit was nearly expired, it was given 
out that Peggotty and Mr. Barkis were going to make a day's holiday 
together, and that little Em'ly and I were to accompany them. I had 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 105 

but a broken sleep the night before, in anticipation of the pleasure of a 
whole day with Em'ly. We were all astir betimes in the morning ; and 
while we were yet at breakfast, Mr. Barkis appeared in the distance, 
driving a chaise-cart towards the object of his affections. 

Peggotty was drest as usual, in her neat and quiet mourning ; but 
Mr. Barkis bloomed in a new blue coat, of which the tailor had given him 
such good measure, that the cuffs would have rendered gloves unnecessary 
in the coldest weather, while the collar was so high that it pushed his hair 
up on end on the top of his head. His bright buttons, too, were of the 
largest size. Eendered complete by drab pantaloons and a buff waistcoat, 
I thought Mr. Barkis a phenomenon of respectability. 

When we were all in a bustle outside the door, I found that 
Mr. Peggotty was prepared with an old shoe, which was to be thrown 
after us for luck, and which he offered to Mrs. Gummidge for that 
purpose. 

" No. It had better be done by somebody else, Dan'l," said 
Mrs. Gummidge. " I 'm a lone lorn creetur' myself, and everythink that 
reminds me of creetur's that ain't lone and lorn, goes contrairy with me." 

" Come, old gal ! " cried Mr. Peggotty. " Take and heave it ! " 

" No, Dan'l," returned Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her 
head. " If I felt less, I could do more. You don't feel like me, Dan'l ; 
thinks don't go contrairy with you, nor you with them ; you had better do 
it yourself." 

But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a 
hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all 
were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that 
Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it ; and, I am sorry 
to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by 
immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of 
Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had 
better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a 
sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. 

Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion ; and the first thing 
we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some 
rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the 
chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and 
propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to 
be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly 
consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate ; informing 
her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared 
to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. 

How merry little Em'ly made herself about it ! With what a demure 
assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little 
woman said I was " a silly boy ;" and then laughed so charmingly that I 
forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure 
of looking at her. 

Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came 
out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going 
along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink, — by-the-by, I 
should hardly have thought, before, that he could wink : 

" What name was it as I wrote up in the cart ? " 



106 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Clara Peggotty," I answered. 

" What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a 
tilt here ? " 

" Clara Peggotty, again ? " I suggested. 

" Clara Peggotty Barkis ! " he returned, and burst into a roar of 
laughter that shook the chaise. 

In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no 
other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done ; and 
the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses, of the 
ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt 
announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of 
her unimpaired aifection ; but she soon became herself again, and said she 
was very glad it was over. 

We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and 
where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great 
satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten 
years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it ; it made no 
sort of difference in her : she was just the same as ever, and went out for 
a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mi*. Barkis philosophi- 
cally smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contem- 
plation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite ; for I distinctly 
call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at 
dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, ne was obliged to have cold 
boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. 

I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind 
of wedding it must have been ! We got into the chaise again soon after 
dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about 
them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an 
amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed any- 
thing I might have taken it into my head to impart to him ; for he had 
a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hear- 
ing, on that very occasion, that I was " a young Eoeshus " — by which I 
think he meant, prodigy. 

When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had 
exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a 
cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. 
Ah, how I loved her ! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and 
were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never 
growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand 
through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads 
on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the 
birds when we were dead ! Some such picture, with no real world in it, 
bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was 
in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless 
hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think 
the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. 

Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night ; and there 
Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to then- 
own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I 
should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but 
that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 107 

Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as 
I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive 
it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the 
only time in all that visit ; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a 
wonderful day. 

It was a night tide ; and soon after we went to bed, Mi'. Peggotty and 
Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary 
house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that 
a lion or" a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack 
upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as 
nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that 
night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until 
morning. 

With morning came Peggotty ; who called to me, as usual, under my 
window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream 
too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful 
little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most 
impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor 
(the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating 
top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large 
quarto edition of Pox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of 
which I do not recollect o#e word, I immediately discovered and imme- 
diately applied myself to ; and I never visited the house afterwards, but 
I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, 
spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. 
I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, 
and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and 
Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are 
now. 

I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little 
Em'ly, that day ; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the 
roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to 
be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in 
exactly the same state. 

" Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house 
over my head," said Peggotty, " you shall find it as if I expected you here 
directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little 
room, my darKng ; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as 
being kept just the same, all the time you were away." 

I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, 
and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke 
to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was 
going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with her- 
self and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or 
lightly ; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking 
Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the 
house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any 
more. 

And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon 
without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition, — apart from all 
friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, 



108 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts, — which seems 
to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. 

What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that 
ever was kept ! — to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere ! No 
such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me ; and they sullenly, sternly, 
steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened 
at about this time ; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; 
and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion 
that I had any claim upon him — and succeeded. 

I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved ; but the 
wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done 
in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, 
month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when 
I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an 
illness ; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and lan- 
guished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would 
have helped me out. 

When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with 
them ; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged 
about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they 
were jealous of my making any friends : thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, 
I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often 
asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before 
that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember con- 
necting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom 
that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a 
surgery ; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the 
whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a 
mortar under his mild directions. 

For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was 
seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either 
came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never 
empty-handed ; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in 
being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few 
times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there ; and then I 
found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty 
dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a 
box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. 
In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, 
that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice ; so 
that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gun- 
powder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. 

All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had 
given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly 
miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only 
comfort ; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them 
over and over I don't know how many times more. 

I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remem- 
brance of, while I remember any thing ; and the recollection of which has 
often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted 
happier times. 



OF DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 109 

I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative 
manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a 
lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentle- 
man. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: 

" What ! Brooks I " 

" No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. 

" Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. " You are 
Brooks of Sheffield. That 's your name." 

At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh 
coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I 
had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before — it is no 
matter — I need not recall when. 

" And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks ? " 
said Mr. Quinion. 

He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk 
with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at 
Mr. Murdstone. 

" He is at home at present," said the latter. " He is not being edu- 
cated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult 
subject." 

That old, double look was on me for a moment ; and then his eye 
darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. 

" Humph ! " said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. " Tine 
weather ! " 

Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my 
shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said : 

" I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still ? Eh, Brooks ? " 

" Aye ! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. 
" You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." 

On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way 
home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. 
Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion 
talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they 
were speaking of me. 

Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next 
morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when 
Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another 
table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his 
hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window ; and I stood looking 
at them all. 

"David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for 
action ; not for moping and droning in." 

— " As you do," added his sister. 

" Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the 
young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It 
is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a 
great deal of correcting ; and to which no greater service can be done than 
to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it 
and break it." 

" For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. " What it wants, 
is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too ! " 



110 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on : 

" I suppose yon know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you 
know it now. You have received some considerable education already. 
Education is costly ; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of 
opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a 
school. What is before you, is a fight with the world ; and the sooner 
you begin it, the better." 

I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way : 
but it occurs to me now, whether or no. 

"You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said 
Mr. Murd stone. 

" The counting-house, sir ? " I repeated. 

" Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. 

I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily : 

" You have heard the ' counting-house ' mentioned, or the business, or 
the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." 

" I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering 
what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. " But I don't 
know when." 

"It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that 
business." 

I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. 

" Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other 
boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, 
give employment to you." 

"He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning 
round, " no other prospect, Murdstone." 

Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, 
without noticing what he had said : 

"Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide 
for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I 
have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing — " 

" — Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. 

"Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone ; 
" as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you 
are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world 
on your own account." 

"In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please 
to do your duty." 

Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was 
to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or 
frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about 
it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I 
much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon 
the morrow. 

Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a 
black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff 
corduroy trousers — which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for 
the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off : behold 
me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, 
sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the post- 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. Ill 

chaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth ! 
See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance ; how the 
grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects ; how the 
spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is 
empty ! 



CHAPTEE XI. 



I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON T LIKE IT. 

I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of 
being much surprised by anything ; but it is matter of some surprise to me, 
even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. 
A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, 
quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonder- 
ful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But 
none was made ; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind 
in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. 

Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was 
down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place ; but 
it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill 
to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was 
a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when 
the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally over- 
run with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke 
of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the 
squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars ; and the 
dirt and rottenness of the place ; are things, not of many years ago, in my 
mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they 
were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with 
my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. 

Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, 
but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to 
certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think 
there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and 
West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the 
consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed 
to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and 
to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were 
labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to 
be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this 
work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. 

There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was 
established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see 
me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the 
counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. 



112 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my 
own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me 
my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron 
and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and 
walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He 
also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom 
he introduced by the — to me — extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. 
I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by~fhat 
name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on 
account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was 
a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was 
engaged as such at one of the large theatres ; where some young relation of 
Mealy's — I think his little sister — did Imps in the Pantomimes. 

No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this 
companionship ; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those 
of my happier childhood — not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest 
of those boys ; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and dis- 
tinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense 
I had, of being utterly without hope now ; of the shame I felt in my position ; 
of the misery it. was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I 
had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my 
emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be 
brought back any more ; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker 
went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the 
water in which I was washing the bottles ; and sobbed as if there were a 
flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. 

The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general 
preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the 
counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and 
found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black 
tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large 
one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very exten- 
sive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but 
he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, 
with a large pair of rusty tassels to it ; and a quizzing-glass hung outside 
his coat, — for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked 
through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. 

"This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." 
" This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, 
and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed 
me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir ?" 

I said T was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at 
ease, Heaven knows ; but it was not in my nature to complain much at 
that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. 

" I am," said the stranger, " thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a 
letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me 
to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at 
present unoccupied — and is, in short, to be let as a — in short," said the 
stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, " as a bed-room — the 
young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to — " and the stranger 
waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. 



Or DAVID COPPERFIELD. 11$ 

" This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. 

"Ahem !" said the stranger, " that is my name." 

" Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, " is known to Mr. Murdstone. 
He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has 
been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and 
he will receive you as a lodger." 

M My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Eoad. 
I — in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in 
another burst of confidence — " I live there." 

I made him a bow. 

"Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, " that your peregrinations 
in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have 
some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direc- 
tion of the City Eoad — in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of 
confidence, " that you might lose yourself — I shall be happy to call this 
evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." 

I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to- 
take that trouble. 

" At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, " shall I — " 

" At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. 

" At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. " I beg to wish you good day r , 
Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." 

So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm : very 
upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. 

Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in 
the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shil- 
lings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined- 
to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and 
seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I 
believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to 
Windsor Terrace at night : it being too heavy for my strength, small as 
it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a 
turn at a neighbouring pump ; and passed the hour which was allowed for 
that meal, in walking about the streets. 

At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I 
washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and 
we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together ; 
Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner 
houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, 
easily, in the morning. 

Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby- 
like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he pre- 
sented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who 
was sitting in the parlor (the first floor was altogether unfurnished, and 
the blinds were kept down to delude the neighbours), with a baby at her 
breast. This baby was one of twins ; and I may remark here that I 
hardly ever, in all my experience of the family, saw both the twins detached 
from Mrs. Micawber at the same time. One of them was always taking 
refreshment. 

There were two other children; Master Micawber, aged about four, 
and Miss Micawber, aged about three. These, and a dark-complexioned- 

i 



114 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

young woman, with a habit of snorting, who was servant to the family, 
and informed me, before half-an-hour had expired, that she was " a 
Orfling," and came from St. Luke's workhouse, in the neighbourhood, 
completed the establishment. My room was at the top of the house, at 
the back : a close chamber ; stencilled all over with an ornament which my 
young imagination represented as a blue muffin; and very scantily furnished. 

" I never thought," said Mrs. Micawber, when she came up, twin and 
all, to show me the apartment, and sat down to take breath, "before 
I was married, when I lived with papa and mama, that I should 
ever find it necessary to take a lodger. But Mr. Micawber being in 
difficulties, all considerations of private feeling must give way." 

I said : " Yes, ma'am." 

" Mr. Micawber's difficulties are almost overwhelming just at present," 
said Mrs. Micawber; "and whether it is possible to bring him through 
them, I don't know. When I lived at home with papa and mama, I 
really should have hardly understood what the word meant, in the sense 
in which I now employ it, but experientia does it — as papa used to say." 

I cannot satisfy myself whether she told me that Mr. Micawber had 
been an officer in the Marines, or whether I have imagined it. I only know 
that I believe to this hour that he was in the Marines once upon a time, 
without knowing why. He was a sort of town traveller for a number of 
miscellaneous houses, now ; but made little or nothing of it, I am afraid. 

" If Mr. Micawber's creditors will not give him time," said Mrs. 
Micawber, " they must take the consequences ; and the sooner they bring 
it to an issue the better. Blood cannot be obtained from a stone, neither can 
anything on account be obtained at present (not to mention law expenses) 
from Mr. Micawber." 

I never can quite understand whether my precocious self-dependence 
confused Mrs. Micawber in reference to my age, or whether she was so full 
of the subject that she would have talked about it to the very twins if 
there had been nobody else to communicate with, but this was the strain 
in which she began, and she went on accordingly all the time I knew her. 

Poor Mrs. Micawber ! She said she had tried to exert herself; and so, 
I have no doubt, she had. The centre of the street-door was perfectly 
covered with a great brass-plate, on which was engraved " Mrs. Micawber's 
Boarding Establishment for Young Ladies : " but I never found that any 
young lady had ever been to school there; or that any young lady 
ever came, or proposed to come; or that the least preparation was 
ever made to receive any young lady. The only visitors I ever saw or 
heard of, were creditors. They used to come at all hours, and some of 
them were quite ferocious. One dirty-faced man, I think he was a boot- 
maker, used to edge himself into the passage as early as seven o'clock in 
the morning, and call up the stairs to Mr. Micawber — " Come ! You ain't 
out yet, you know. Pay us, will you ? Don't hide, you know ; that 's 
mean. I wouldn't be mean if I was you. Pay us, mil you ? You just 
pay us, d 'ye hear ? Come ! " Keceiving no answer to these taunts, he 
would mount in his wrath to the words " swindlers " and " robbers ;" and 
these being ineffectual too, would sometimes go to the extremity of crossing 
the street, and roaring up at the windows of the second floor, where he 
knew Mr. Micawber was. At these times, Mr. Micawber would be trans- 
ported with grief and mortification, even to the length (as I was once 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD, 115 

made aware by a scream from his wife) of making motions at himself with 
a razor ; but within half an hour afterwards, he would polish up his shoes 
with extraordinary pains, and go out, humming a tune with a greater air 
of gentility than ever. Mrs. Micawber was quite as elastic. I have known 
her to be thrown into fainting tits by the king's taxes at three o'clock, and 
to eat lamb-chops, breaded, and drink warm ale (paid for with two tea- 
spoons that had gone to the pawnbroker's) at four. On one occasion, 
when an execution had just been put in, coming home through some 
chance as early as six o'clock, I saw her lying (of course with a twin) 
under the grate in a swoon, with her hair all torn about her face ; but 
I never knew her more cheerful than she was, that very same night, over 
a veal-cutlet before the kitchen fire, telling me stories about her papa and 
mama, and the company they used to keep. 

In this house, and with this family, I passed my leisure time. My own 
exclusive breakfast of a penny loaf and a pennyworth of milk, I provided 
myself. I kept another small loaf, and a modicum of cheese, on a particu- 
lar shelf of a particular cupboard, to make my supper on when I came back 
at night. This made a hole in the six or seven shillings, I know well ; and 
I was out at the warehouse all day, and had to support myself on that 
money all the week. From Monday morning until Saturday night, I had 
no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no 
support, of any kind, from any one, that I can call to mind, as I hope to 
go to heaven ! 

I was so young and childish, and so little qualified — how could I be 
otherwise? — to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that 
•often, in going to Murdstone and Grinby's, of a morning, I could not resist 
the stale pastry put out for sale at half-price at the pastrycook's doors, 
and spent in that, the money I should have kept for my dinner. Then, 
T went without my dinner, or bought a roll or a slice of pudding. I 
remember two pudding-shops, between which I was divided, according 
to my finances. One was in a court close to St. Martin's Church — at the 
back of the church, — which is now removed altogether. The pudding at 
that shop was made of currants, and was rather a special pudding, but 
was dear, twopennyworth not being larger than a pennyworth of more 
ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the Strand — some- 
where in that part which has been rebuilt since. It was a stout pale 
pudding, heavy and flabby, and with great flat raisins in it, stuck in whole 
at wide distances apart. It came up hot at about my time every day, and 
many a day did I dine off it. When I dined regularly and handsomely, I had 
a saveloy and a penny-loaf, or a fourpenny plate of red beef from a cook's 
shop ; or a plate of bread and cheese and a glass of beer, from a miserable 
old public-house opposite our place of business, called the Lion, or the 
Lion and something else that I have forgotten. Once, I remember 
carrying my own bread (which I had brought from home in the morning) 
under my arm, wrapped in a piece of paper, like a book, and going to a 
famous alamode beef-house near Drury Lane, and ordering a "small plate" 
of that delicacy to eat with it. What the waiter thought of such a 
strange little apparition coming in all alone, I don't know ; but I can see 
him now, staring at me as I ate my dinner, and bringing up the other 
waiter to look. I gave him a halfpenny for himself, and I wish he hadn't 
taken it. 

i2 



116 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

We had half-an-hour, I think, for tea. When I had money enough, I 
used to get half-a-pint of ready-made coffee and a slice of bread and 
butter. When I had none, I used to look at a venison-shop in Fleet- 
street ; or I have strolled, at such a time, as far as Covent Garden Market, 
and stared at the pine-apples. I was fond of wandering about the 
Adelphi, because it was a mysterious place, with those dark arches. I 
see myself emerging one evening from some of these arches, on a little 
public-house close to the river, with an open space before it, where 
some coal-heavers were dancing ; to look at whom, I sat down upon a 
bench. I wonder what they thought of me ! 

I was such a child, and so little, that frequently when I went into the 
bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter, to moisten what 
I had had for dinner, they were afraid to give it me. I remember one hot 
evening I went into the bar of a public-house, and said to the landlord : 

" What is your best — your very best — ale a glass ? " For it was a 
special occasion. I don't know what. It may have been my birth-day. 

" Twopence-halfpenny," says the landlord, " is the price of the Genuine 
Stunning ale." 

"Then," says I, producing the money, "just draw me a glass of the 
Genuine Stunning, if you please, with a good head to it." 

The landlord looked at me in return over the bar, from head to foot, 
with a strange smile on his face ; and instead of drawing the beer, looked 
round the screen and said something to his wife. She came out from 
behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me. 
Here we stand, all three, before me now. The landlord in his shirt 
sleeves, leaning against the bar window-frame ; his wife looking over the 
little half-door ; and I, in some confusion, looking up at them from out- 
side the partition. They asked me a good many questions ; as, what my 
name was, how old I was, where I lived, how I was employed, and how 
I came there. To all of which, that I might commit nobody, I invented, 
I am afraid, appropriate answers. They served me with the ale, though 
I suspect it was not the Genuine Stunning; and the landlord's wife, 
opening the little half-door of the bar, and bending down, gave me my 
money back, and gave me a kiss that was half admiring and half compas- 
sionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure. 

I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scanti- 
ness of my resources or the difficulties of my life. I know that if a shilling 
were given me by Mr. Quinion at any time, I spent it in a dinner or a 
tea. I know that I worked, from morning until night, with common men 
and boys, a shabby child. I know that I lounged about the streets, 
insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. I know that, but for the mercy of 
God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little 
robber or a little vagabond. 

Yet I held some station at Murdstone and Grinby's too. Besides that 
Mr. Q-uinion did what a careless man so occupied, and dealing with a 
thing so anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a different footing from 
the rest, I never said, to man or boy, how it was that I came to be 
there, or gave the least indication of being sorry that I was there. That 
I suffered in secret, and that I suffered exquisitely, no one ever knew but 
I. How much I suffered, it is, as I have said already, utterly beyond my 
power to tell. But I kept my own counsel, and I did my work. I knew 







! 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 117 

from the first, that, if I could not do my work as well as any of the rest, I 
could not hold myself above slight and contempt. I soon became at least 
as expeditious and as skilful as either of the other boys. Though perfectly 
familiar with them, my conduct and manner were different enough from 
theirs to place a space between us. They and the men generally spoke of 
me as "the little gent," or "the young Suffolker." A certain man named 
Gregory, who was foreman of the packers, and another named Tipp, who 
was the carman, and wore a red jacket, used to address me sometimes as 
" David :" but I think it was mostly when we were very confidential, and 
when I had made some efforts to entertain them, over our work, with 
some results of the old readings ; which were fast perishing out of my re- 
membrance. Mealy Potatoes uprose once, and rebelled against my being 
so distinguished ; but Mick Walker settled him in no time. 

My rescue from this kind of existence I considered quite hopeless, and 
abandoned, as such, altogether. I am solemnly convinced that I never for 
one hour was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than miserably unhappy ; 
but I bore it ; and even to Peggotty, partly for the love of her and partly 
for shame, never in any letter (though many passed between us) revealed 
the truth. 

Mr. Micawber's difficulties were an addition to the distressed state of 
my mind. In my forlorn state I became quite attached to the family, and 
used to walk about, busy with Mrs. Micawber's calculations of ways and 
means, and heavy with the weight of Mr. Micawber's debts. On a Satur- 
day night, which was my grand treat, — partly because it was a great thing 
to walk home with six or seven shillings in my pocket, looking into the 
shops and thinking what such a sum would buy, and partly because I went 
home early, — Mrs. Micawber would make the most heart-rending confidences 
to me; also on a Sunday morning, when I mixed the portion of tea or coffee 
I had bought over-night, in a little shaving pot, and sat late at my break- 
fast. It was nothing at all unusual for Mr. Micawber to sob violently at 
the beginning of one of these Saturday night conversations, and sing 
about Jack's delight being his lovely Nan, towards the end of it. I have 
known him come home to supper with a flood of tears, and a declaration 
that nothing was now left but a jail ; and go to bed making a calculation of 
the expense of putting bow-windows to the house, " in case anything turned 
up," which was his favourite expression. And Mrs. Micawber was just the 
same. 

A curious equality of friendship, originating, I suppose, in our respec- 
tive circumstances, sprung up between me and these people, notwithstanding 
the ludicrous disparity in our years. But I never allowed myself to be 
prevailed upon to accept any invitation to eat and drink with them out of 
their stock (knowing that they got on badly with the butcher and baker, 
and had often not too much for themselves), until Mrs. Micawber took me 
into her entire confidence. This she did one evening as follows : 

" Master Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, " I make no stranger of 
you, and therefore do not hesitate to say that Mr. Micawber's difficulties 
are coming to a crisis." 

It made me very miserable to hear it, and I looked at Mrs. Micawber's 
red eyes with the utmost sympathy. 

" With the exception of the heel of a Dutch cheese — which is not adapted 
to the wants of a young family" — said Mrs. Micawber, " there is really not 



118 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

a scrap of anything in the larder. I was accustomed to speak of the larder 
when I lived with papa and mama, and I use the word almost unconsciously. 
What I mean to express, is, that there is nothing to eat in the house." 

"Dear me!" I said, in great concern. 

I had two or three shillings of my week's money in my pocket — from 
which I presume that it must have been on a Wednesday night when we 
held this conversation — and I hastily produced them, and with heartfelt 
emotion begged Mrs. Micawber to accept of them as a loan. But that lady, 
kissing me, and making me put them back in my pocket, replied that she 
couldn't think of it. 

"No, my dear Master Copperfield," said she, "far be it from my 
thoughts ! But you have a discretion beyond your years, and can render 
me another kind of service, if you will ; and a service I will thankfully 
accept of." 

I begged Mrs. Micawber to name it. 

" I have parted with the plate myself," said Mrs. Micawber. " Six tea, 
two salt, and a pair of sugars, I have at different times borrowed money on, 
in secret, with my own hands. But the twins are a great tie ; and to me, 
with my recollections of papa and mama, these transactions are very 
painful. There are still a few trifles that we could part with. Mr. 
Micawber's feelings would never allow him to dispose of them; and Clickett" 
— this was the girl from the workhouse — " being of a vulgar mind, would 
take painful liberties if so much confidence was reposed in her. Master 
Copperfield, if I might ask you" — 

I understood Mrs. Micawber now, and begged her to make use of me 
to any extent. I began to dispose of the more portable articles of pro- 
perty that very evening ; and went out on a similar expedition almost 
every morning, before I went to Murdstone and Grinby's. 

Mr. Micawber had a few books on a little chiffonier, which he called the 
library ; and those went first. I carried them, one after another, to a 
bookstall in the City Boad — one part of which, near our house, was 
almost all bookstalls and bird-shops then — and sold them for whatever 
they would bring, The keeper of this bookstall, who lived in a little 
house behind it, used to get tipsy every night, and to be violently scolded 
by his wife every morning. More than once, when I went there early, I 
had audience of him in a turn-up bedstead, with a cut in his forehead or 
a black eye, bearing witness to his excesses over night (I am afraid he was- 
quarrelsome in his drink), and he, with a shaking hand, endeavouring to 
find the needful shillings in one or other of the pockets of his clothes, 
which lay upon the floor, while his wife, with a baby in her arms and her 
shoes down at heel, never left off rating him. Sometimes he had lost his 
money, and then he would ask me to call again ; but his wife had always 
got some — had taken his, I dare say, while he was drunk — and secretly 
completed the bargain on the stairs, as we went down together. 

At the pawnbroker's shop, too, I began to be very well known. The 
principal gentleman who officiated behind the counter, took a good deal 
of notice of me ; and often got me, I recollect, to decline a Latin noun or 
adjective, or to conjugate a Latin verb, in his ear, while he transacted my 
business. After all these occasions Mrs. Micawber made a little treat, 
which was generally a supper ; and there was a peculiar relish in these 
meals which I well remember. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 119 

At last Mr. Micawber's difficulties came to a crisis, and he was arrested 
early one morning, and carried over to the King's Bench Prison in the 
Borough. He told me, as he went out of the house, that the God of day 
had now gone down upon him — and I really thought his heart was broken 
and mine too. But I heard, afterwards, that he was seen to play a lively 
game at skittles, before noon. 

On the first Sunday after he was taken there, I was to go and see him, 
and have dinner with him. I was to ask my way to such a place, and 
just short of that place I should see such another place, and just short of 
that I should see a yard, which I was to cross, and keep straight on until 
I saw a turnkey. All this I did ; and when at last I did see a turnkey 
(poor little fellow that I was !), and thought how, when Koderick Eandom 
was in a debtor's prison, there was a man there with nothing on him but 
an old rug, the turnkey swam before my dimmed eyes and my beating 
heart. 

Mr. Micawber was waiting for me within the gate, and we went up to 
his room (top story but one), and cried very much. He solemnly con- 
jured me, I remember, to take warning by his fate ; and to observe that if 
a man had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds 
nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he spent 
twenty pounds one he would be miserable. After which he borrowed a 
shilling of me for porter, gave me a written order on Mrs. Micawber for 
the amount, and put away his pocket-handkerchief, and cheered up. 

We sat before a little fire, with two bricks put within the rusted grate, 
one on each side, to prevent its burning too many coals; until another 
debtor, who shared the room with Mr. Micawber, came in from the bake- 
house with the loin of mutton which was our joint-stock repast. Then 
I was sent up to " Captain Hopkins" in the room overhead, with 
Mr. Micawber's compliments, and I was his young friend, and would 
Captain Hopkins lend me a knife and fork. 

Captain Hopkins lent me the knife and fork, with his compliments to 
Mr. Micawber. There was a very dirty lady in his little room, and two 
wan girls, his daughters, with shock heads of hair. I thought it was 
better to borrow Captain Hopkins's knife and fork, than Captain Hopkins's 
comb. The Captain himself was in the last extremity of shabbiness, with 
large whiskers, and an old, old brown great-coat with no other coat below it. 
I saw his bed rolled up in a corner ; and what plates and dishes and pots 
he had, on a shelf ; and I divined (God knows how) that though the two 
girls with the shock heads of hair were Captain Hopkins's children, 
the dirty lady was not married to Captain Hopkins. My timid station on 
his threshhold was not occupied more than a couple of minutes at most ; 
but I came down again with all this in my knowledge, as surely as the 
knife and fork were in my hand. 

There was something gipsy-like and agreeable in the dinner, after all. 
I took back Captain Hopkins's knife and fork early in the afternoon, and 
went home to comfort Mrs. Micawber with an account of my visit. She 
fainted when she saw me return, and made a little jug of egg-hot after- 
wards to console us while we talked it over. 

I don't know how the household furniture came to be sold for the 
family benefit, or who sold it, except that I did not. Sold it was, how- 
ever, and carried away in a van ; except the bed, a few chairs, and the 



120 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

kitchen-table. With these possessions we encamped, as it were, in the 
two parlors of the emptied house in Windsor Terrace ; Mrs. Micawber, 
the children, the Orfling, and myself; and lived in those rooms night 
and day. I have no idea for how long, though it seems to me for a 
long time. At last Mrs. Micawber resolved to move into the prison, 
where Mr. Micawber had now secured a room to himself. So I took 
the key of the house to the landlord, who was very glad to get it ; and 
•the beds were sent over to the King's Bench, except mine, for which 
a little room was hired outside the walls in the neighbourhood of that 
Institution, very much to my satisfaction, since the Micawbers and I had 
become too used to one another, in our troubles, to part. The Orfling 
was likewise accommodated with an inexpensive lodging in the same 
neighbourhood. Mine was a quiet back-garret with a sloping roof, com- 
manding a pleasant prospect of a timber-yard ; and when I took possession 
of it, with the reflection that Mr. Micawber's troubles had come to a crisis 
at last, I thought it quite a paradise. 

All this time I was working at Murdstone and Grinby's in the same 
common way, and with the same common companions, and with the same 
sense of unmerited degradation as at first. But I never, happily for me no 
doubt, made a single acquaintance, or spoke to any of the many boys whom 
I saw daily in going to the warehouse, in coming from it, and in prowling 
about the streets at meal-times. I led the same secretly unhappy life ; but 
I led it in the same lonely, self-reliant manner. The only changes I am 
conscious of are, firstly, that I had grown more shabby, and secondly, 
that I was now relieved of much of the weight of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber's 
cares ; for some relatives or friends had engaged to help them at their 
present pass, and they lived more comfortably in the prison than they 
had lived for a long while out of it. I used to breakfast with them now, 
in virtue of some arrangement, of which I have forgotten the details. I 
forget, too, at what hour the gates were opened in the morning, admitting 
of my going in ; but I know that I was often up at six o'clock, and that 
my favorite lounging-place in the interval was old London Bridge, where 
I was wont to sit in one of the stone recesses, watching the people going 
by, or to look over the balustrades at the sun shining in the water, and 
lighting up the golden flame on the top of the Monument. The Orfling 
met me here sometimes, to be told some astonishing fictions respecting the 
wharves and the Tower ; of which I can say no more than that I hope I 
believed them myself. In the evening I used to go back to the prison, 
and walk up and down the parade with Mr. Micawber ; or play casino 
ivith Mrs. Micawber, and hear reminiscences of her papa and mama. 
"Whether Mr. Murdstone knew where I was, I am unable to say. I never 
told them at Murdstone and Grinby's. 

Mr. Micawber's affairs, although past their crisis, were very much 
involved by reason of a certain " Deed," of which I used to hear a great 
deal, and which I suppose, now, to have been some former composition 
with his creditors, though I was so far from being clear about it then, 
that I am conscious of having confounded it with those demoniacal parch- 
ments which are held to have, once upon a time, obtained to a great 
extent in Germany. At last this document appeared to be got out of the 
way, somehow ; at all events it ceased to be the rock-ahead it had been ; 
and Mrs. Micawber informed me that "her family " had decided that Mr. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 121 

Micawber should apply for his release under the Insolvent Debtors Act, 
which would set him free, she expected, in about six weeks. 

" And then," said Mr. Micawber, who was present, " I have no doubt 
I shall, please Heaven, begin to be beforehand with. the world, and to live 
in a perfectly new manner, if — in short, if anything turns up." 

By way of going in for anything that might' be on the cards, I call to 
mind that Mr. Micawber, about this time, composed a petition to the 
House of Commons, praying for an alteration in the law of imprisonment 
for debt. I set down this remembrance here, because it is an instance to 
myself of the manner in which I fitted my old books to my altered life, 
and made stories for myself, out of the streets, and out of men and women ; 
and how some main points in the character I shall unconsciously develope, 
I suppose, in writing my life, were gradually forming all this while. 

There was a club in the prison, in which Mr. Micawber, as a gentleman, 
was a great authority. Mr. Micawber had stated his idea of this petition 
to the club, and the club had strongly approved of the same. Wherefore 
Mr. Micawber (who was a thoroughly good-natured man, and as active a 
creature about everything but his own affairs as ever existed, and never 
so happy as when he was busy about something that could never be of 
any profit to him) set to work at the petition, invented it, engrossed it on 
an immense sheet of paper, spread it out on a table, and appointed a time 
for all the club, and all within the walls if they chose, to come up to his 
room and sign it. 

When I heard of this approaching ceremony, I was so anxious to see 
them all come in, one after another, though I knew the greater part of 
them already, and they me, that I got an hour's leave of absence from 
Murdstone and Grinby's, and established myself in a corner for that pur- 
pose. As many of the principal members of the club as could be got into 
the small room without filling it, supported Mr. Micawber in front of the 
petition, while my old friend Captain Hopkins (who had washed himself, 
to do honor to so solemn an occasion) stationed himself close to it, to 
read it to all who were unacquainted with its contents. The door was 
then thrown open, and the general population began to come in, in a long 
file : several waiting outside, while one entered, affixed his signature, and 
went out. To everybody in succession, Captain Hopkins said : " Have 
you read it ? "— " No."— " Would you like to hear it read?" If he 
weakly showed the least disposition to hear it, Captain Hopkins, in a 
loud sonorous voice, gave him every word of it. The Captain would have 
read it twenty thousand times, if twenty thousand people would have 
heard him, one by one. I remember a certain luscious roll he gave to 
such phrases as " The people's representatives in Parliament assembled," 
"Your petitioners therefore humbly approach your honorable house," 
"His gracious Majesty's unfortunate subjects," as if the words were 
something real in his mouth, and delicious to taste ; Mr. Micawber, mean- 
while, listening with a little of an author's vanity, and contemplating (not 
severely) the spikes on the opposite wall. 

As I walked to and fro daily between Southwark and Blackfriars, and 
lounged about at meal-times in obscure streets, the stones of which may, 
for anything I know, be worn at this moment by my childish feet, I 
wonder how many of these people were wanting in the crowd that 
used to come filing before me in review again, to the echo of Captain 



122 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Hopkins's voice ! When my thoughts go back, now, to that slow 
agony of my youth, I wonder how much of the histories I invented 
for such people hangs like a mist of fancy over well-remembered facts ! 
When I tread the old ground, I do not wonder that I seem to see and 
pity, going on before me, an innocent romantic boy, making his imaginative 
world out of such strange experiences and sordid things ! 



CHAPTER XII. 



LIKING LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT NO BETTER, I EORM A GREAT 
RESOLUTION. 

In due time, Mr. Micawber's petition was ripe for hearing ; and that 
gentleman was ordered to be discharged under the act, to my great joy. 
His creditors were not implacable ; and Mrs. Micawber informed me that 
even the revengeful bootmaker had declared in open court that he bore 
him no malice, but that when money was owing to him he liked to be 
paid. He said he thought it was human nature. 

Mi*. Micawber returned to the King's Bench when his case was over, as 
some fees were to be settled, and some formalities observed, before he 
could be actually released. The club received him with transport, and 
held an harmonic meeting that evening in his honor ; Avhile Mrs. Micawber 
and I had a lamb's fry in private, surrounded by the sleeping family. 

" On such an occasion I will give you, Master Copperfield," said 
Mrs. Micawber, "in a little more flip," for we had been having some 
already, " the memory of my papa and mama." 

"Are they dead, ma'am?" I enquired, after drinking the toast in a 
wine-glass. 

" My mama departed this life," said Mrs. Micawber, " before 
Mr. Micawber's difficulties commenced, or at least before they became 
pressing. My papa lived to bail Mr. Micawber several times, and then 
expired, regretted by a numerous circle." 

Mrs. Micawber shook her head, and dropped a pious tear upon the 
twin who happened to be in hand. 

As I could hardly hope for a more favourable opportunity of putting a 
question in which I had a near interest, I said to Mrs. Micawber : 

" May I ask, ma'am, what you and Mr. Micawber intend to do, now 
that Mr. Micawber is out of his difficulties, and at liberty ? Have you 
settled yet?" 

" My family," said Mrs. Micawber, who always said those two words 
with an air, though I never could discover who came under the denomina- 
tion, " my family are of opinion that Mr. Micawber should quit London, 
and exert his talents in the country. Mr. Micawber is a man of great 
talent, Master Copperfield." 

I said I was sure of that. 

" Of great talent," repeated Mrs. Micawber. " My family are of opinion, 
that, with a little interest, something might be done for a man of his ability 
in the Custom House. The influence of my family being local, it is their 



OP DAVID COPPERPIELD. 123 

wish that Mr. Micawber should go down to Plymouth. They think it 
indispensable that he should be upon the spot." 

" That he may be ready?" I suggested. 

" Exactly," returned Mrs. Micawber. " That he may be ready — in 
case of anything turning up." 

" And do you go too, ma'am ? " 

The events of the day, in combination with the twins, if not with the 
flip, had made Mrs. Micawber hysterical, and she shed tears as she 
replied : 

" I never will desert Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber may have con- 
cealed his difficulties from me in the first instance, but his sanguine temper 
may have led him to expect that he would overcome them. The pearl 
necklace and bracelets which I inherited from mama, have been disposed 
of for less than half their value ; and the set of coral, which was the 
wedding gift of my papa, has been actually thrown away for nothing. 
But I never will desert Mr. Micawber. No ! " cried Mrs. Micawber, 
more affected than before, " I never will do it ! It 's of no use asking 
me!" 

I felt quite uncomfortable — as if Mrs. Micawber supposed I had asked 
her to do anything of the sort ! — and sat looking at her in alarm. 

" Mr. Micawber has his faults. I do not deny that he is improvident. 
I do not deny that he has kept me in the dark as to his resources and his 
liabilities, both," she went on, looking at the wall ; " but I never will desert 
Mr. Micawber ! " 

Mrs. Micawber having now raised her voice into a perfect scream, I was 
so frightened that I ran off to the club-room, and disturbed Mr. Micawber 
in the act of presiding at a long table, and leading the chorus of 

Gee up, Dobbin, 
Gfee ho, Dobbin, 
Gee up, Dobbin, 
Gee up, and gee ho — o — o ! 

— with the tidings that Mrs. Micawber was in an alarming state, upon 
which he immediately burst into tears, and came away with me with his waist- 
coat full of the heads and tails of shrimps, of which he had been partaking. 

" Emma, my angel ! " cried Mr. Micawber, running into the room ; 
" what is the matter? " 

" I never will desert you, Micawber ! " she exclaimed. 

" My life ! " said Mr. Micawber, taking her in Iris arms. " I am per- 
fectly aware of it." 

" He is the parent of my children ! He is the father of my twins ! He 
is the husband of my affections," cried Mrs. Micawber, struggling ; " and 
I ne — ver— will — desert Mr. Micawber ! " 

Mr. Micawber was so deeply affected by this proof of her devotion (as 
to me, I was dissolved in tears), that he hung over her in a passionate 
manner, imploring her to look up, and to be calm. But the more he asked 
Mrs. Micawber to look up, the more she fixed her eyes on nothing ; and 
the more he asked her to compose herself, the more she wouldn't. Con- 
sequently Mr. Micawber was soon so overcome, that he mingled his tears 
with hers and mine ; until he begged me to do him the favor of taking a 
chair on the staircase, while he got her into bed. I would have taken my 



124 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

leave for the night, but he would not hear of my doing that until the 
strangers' bell should ring. So I sat at the staircase window, until he 
came out with another chair and joined me. 

" How is Mrs. Micawber now, sir ?" I said. 

" Very low," said Mr. Micawber, shaking his head ; " re-action. Ah, 
this has been a dreadful day ! We stand alone now — everything is gone 
from us ! " 

Mr. Micawber pressed my hand, and groaned, and afterwards shed 
tears. I was greatly touched, and disappointed too, for I had expected 
that we should be quite gay on this happy and long-looked for occasion. 
But Mr. and Mrs. Micawber were so used to their old difficulties, I think, 
that they felt quite shipwrecked when they came to consider that they 
were released from them. All their elasticity was departed, and I never 
saw them half so wretched as on this night ; insomuch that when the bell 
rang, and Mr. Micawber walked with me to the lodge, and parted from 
me there with a blessing, I felt quite afraid to leave him by himself, he 
was so profoundly miserable. 

But through all the confusion and lowness of spirits in which we had 
been, so unexpectedly to me, involved, I plainly discerned that Mr. and 
Mrs. Micawber and their family were going away from London, and that 
a parting between us was near at hand. It was in my walk home 
that night, and in the sleepless hours which followed when I lay in 
bed, that the thought first occurred to me — though I don't know how 
it came into my head — which afterwards shaped itself into a settled 
resolution. 

I had grown to be so accustomed to the Micawbers, and had been so 
intimate with them in their distresses, and was so utterly friendless with- 
out them, that the prospect of being thrown upon some new shift for a 
lodging, and going once more among unknown people, was like being 
that moment turned adrift into my present life, with such a knowledge of 
it ready made, as experience had given me. All the sensitive feelings it 
wounded so cruelly, all the shame and misery it kept alive within my 
breast, became more poignant as I thought of this ; and I determined that 
the life was unendurable. 

That there was no hope of escape from it, unless the escape was my 
own act, I knew quite well. I rarely heard from Miss Murdstone, and 
never from Mr. Murdstone : but two or three parcels of made or mended 
clothes had come up for me, consigned to Mr. Quinion, and in each there 
was a scrap of paper to the effect that J. M. trusted D. C. was applying 
himself to business, and devoting himself wholly to his duties — not the 
least hint of my ever being any thing else than the common drudge into 
which I was fast settling down. 

The very next day showed me, while my mind was in the first agita- 
tion of what it had conceived, that Mrs. Micawber had not spoken of their 
going away without warrant. They took a lodging in the house where I 
lived, for a week ; at the expiration of which time they were to start for 
Plymouth. Mr. Micawber himself came down to the counting-house, in 
the afternoon, to tell Mr. Quinion that he must relinquish me on the day 
of his departure, and to give me a high character, which I am sure I 
deserved. And Mr. Quinion, calling in Tipp the carman, who was a 
married man, and had a room to let, quartered me prospectively on him — 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 125 

by our mutual consent, as he had every reason to think; for I said nothing, 
though my resolution was now taken. 

I passed my evenings with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, during the remain- 
ing term of our residence under the same roof ; and I think we became 
fonder of one another as the time went on. On the last Sunday, they 
invited me to dinner ; and we had a loin of pork and apple sauce, and a 
pudding. I had bought a spotted wooden horse over-night as a parting 
gift to little Wilkins Micawber — that was the boy — and a doll for little 
Emma. I had also bestowed a shilling on the Orfling, who was about 
to be disbanded. 

We had a very pleasant day, though we were all in a tender state about 
our approaching separation. 

"I shall never, Master Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, " revert to 
the period when Mr. Micawber was in difficulties, without thinking of 
you. Your conduct has always been of the most delicate and obliging 
description. You have never been a lodger. You have been a friend." 

" My dear," said Mr. Micawber ; " Copperfield," for so he had been 
accustomed to call me, of late, " has a heart to feel for the distresses of 
his fellow creatures when they are behind a cloud, and a head to plan, and 
a hand to in short, a general ability to dispose of such available pro- 
perty as could be made away with." 

I expressed my sense of this commendation, and said I was very sorry 
we were going to lose one another. 

" My dear young friend," said Mr. Micawber, " I am older than you ; 
a man of some experience in life, and — and of some experience, in short, 
in difficulties, generally speaking. At present, and until something turns 
up (which I am, I may say, hourly expecting), I have nothing to bestow 
but advice. Still my advice is so far worth taking, that — in short, that I 
have never taken it myself, and am the " — here Mr. Micawber, who had 
been beaming and smiling, all over his head and face, up to the present 
moment, checked himself and frowned — " the miserable wretch you 
behold." 

" My dear Micawber ! " urged his wife. 

" I say," returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself, and smiling 
again, "the miserable wretch you behold. My advice is, never do 
to-morrow what you can do to-day. Procrastination is the thief of time. 
Collar him!" 

" My poor papa's maxim," Mrs. Micawber observed. 

" My dear," said Mr. Micawber, " your papa was very well in his way, 
and Heaven forbid that I should disparage him. Take him for all in all, 
we ne'er shall — in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of anybody 
else possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able to 
read the same description of print, without spectacles. But he applied 
that maxim to our marriage, my dear ; and that was so far prematurely 
entered into, in consequence, that I never recovered the expence." 

Mr. Micawber looked aside at Mrs. Micawber, and added : " Not that I 
am sorry for it. Quite the contrary, my love." After which, he was 
grave for a minute or so. 

"My other piece of advice, Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "you 
know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen 
six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure 



126 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, 
the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and 
— and in short you are for ever floored. As I am ! " 

To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass 
of punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and whistled the 
College Hornpipe. 

I did not fail to assure him that I would store these precepts in my 
mind, though indeed I had no need to do so, for, at the time, they affected 
me visibly. Next morning I met the whole family at the coach-office, and 
saw them, with a desolate heart, take their places outside, at the back. 

"Master Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, " God bless you! I never 
can forget all that, you know, and I never would if I could. 5 ' 

" Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, " farewell ! Every happiness and 
prosperity ! If, in the progress of revolving years, I could persuade myself 
that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you, I should feel that I 
had not occupied another man's place in existence altogether in vain. In 
case of anything turning up (of which I am rather confident), I shall be 
extremely happy if it should be in my power to improve your prospects." 

I think, as Mrs. Micawber sat at the back of the coach, with the children, 
and I stood in the road looking wistfully at them, a mist cleared from her 
eyes, and she saw what a little creature I really was. I think so, because 
she beckoned to me to climb up, with quite a new and motherly expression 
in her face, and put her arm round my neck, and gave me just such a kiss 
as she might have given to her own boy. I had barely time to get down 
again before the coach started, and I could hardly see the family for the 
handkerchiefs they waved. It was gone in a minute. The Orfiing and I 
stood looking vacantly at each other in the middle of the road, and then 
shook hands and said good bye ; she going back, I suppose, to Saint Luke's 
workhouse, as I went to begin my weary day at Murdstone and Grinby's. 

But with no intention of passing many more weary days there. No. 
I had resolved to run away. — To go, by some means or other, down into 
the country, to the only relation I had in the world, and tell my story to 
my aunt, Miss Betsey. 

I have already observed that I don't know how this desperate idea 
eame into my brain. But, once there, it remained there ; and hardened 
into a purpose than which I have never entertained a more determined 
purpose in my life. I am far from sure that I believed there was any- 
thing hopeful in it, but my mind was thoroughly made up that it must be 
carried into execution. 

Again, and again, and a hundred times again, since the night when the 
thought had first occurred to me and banished sleep, I had gone over that 
old story of my poor mother's about my birth, which it had been one of 
my great delights in the old time to hear her tell, and which I knew by 
heart. My aunt walked into that story, and walked out of it, a dread and 
awful personage ; but there was one little trait in her behaviour which I liked 
to dwell on, and which gave me some faint shadow of encouragement. 
I could not forget how my mother had thought that she felt her touch 
her pretty hair with no ungentle hand ; and though it might have been 
altogether my mother's fancy, and might have had no foundation 
whatever in fact, I made a little picture, out of it, of my terrible aunt 
relenting towards the girlish beauty that I recollected so well and loved 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 127 

so much, which softened the whole narrative. It is very possible that 
it had been in my mind a long time, and had gradually engendered my 
determination. 

As I did not even know where Miss Betsey lived, I wrote a long letter 
to Peggotty, and asked her, incidentally, if she remembered ; pretending 
that I had heard of such a lady living at a certain place I named at 
random, and had a curiosity to know if it were the same. In the course 
of that letter, I told Peggotty that I had a particular occasion for half a 
guinea ; and that if she could lend me that sum until I could repay it, I 
should be very much obliged to her, and would tell her afterwards what I 
had wanted it for. 

Peggotty's answer soon arrived, and was, as usual, full of affectionate 
devotion. She enclosed the half guinea (I was afraid she must have 
had a world of trouble to get it out of Mr. Barkis's box), and told 
me that Miss Betsey lived near Dover, but whether at Dover itself, 
at Hythe, Sandgate, or Eolkstone, she could not say. One of our 
men, however, informing me on *my asking him about these places, that 
they were all close together, I deemed this enough for my object, and 
resolved to set out at the end of that week. 

Being a very honest little creature, and unwilling to disgrace the 
memory I was going to leave behind me at Murdstone and Grinby's, I 
considered myself bound to remain until Saturday night ; and, as I had 
been paid a week's wages in advance when I first came there, not to pre- 
sent myself in the counting-house at the usual hour, to receive my stipend. 
Por this express reason, I had borrowed the half-guinea, that I might not 
be without a fund for my travelling-expenses. Accordingly, when the 
Saturday night came, and we were all waiting in the warehouse to be 
paid, and Tipp the carman, who always took precedence, went in first to 
draw his money, I shook Mick Walker by the hand ; asked him when it 
came to his turn to be paid, to say to Mr. Quinion that I had gone to 
move my box to Tipp's ; and, bidding a last good night to Mealy Potatoes, 
ran away. 

My box was at my old lodging, over the water, and I had [written a 
direction for it on the back of one of our address cards that we nailed on 
the casks : " Master David, to be left till called for, at the Coach Office, 
Dover." This I had in my pocket ready to put on the box, after I should 
have got it out of the house ; and as I went towards my lodging, I looked 
about me for some one who would help me to cany it to the booking- 
office. 

There was a long-legged young man with a very little empty donkey- 
cart, standing near the Obelisk, in the Blackfriars Eoad, whose eye I 
caught as I was going by, and who, addressing me as " Sixpenn'orth of 
bad ha'pence," hoped " I should know him agin to swear to " — in allu- 
sion, I have no doubt, to my staring at him. I stopped to assure him 
that I had not done so in bad manners, but uncertain whether he might 
or might not like a job. 

" Wot job ?" said the long-legged young man. 

"To move a box," I answered. 

" Wot box ? " said the long-legged young man. 

_ I told him mine, which was down that street there, and which I wanted 
him to take to the Dover coach-office for sixpence. 



128 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Done with you for a tanner ! " said the long-legged young man, and 
directly got upon his cart, which was nothing but a large wooden-tray on 
wheels, and rattled away at such a rate, that it was as much as I could do 
to keep pace with the donkey. 

There was a defiant manner about this young man, and particularly about 
the way in which he chewed straw as he spoke to me, that I did not much 
like ; as the bargain was made, however, I took him up-stairs to the room 
I was leaving, and we brought the box down, and put it on his cart. Now, 
I was unwilling to put the direction-card on there, lest any of my land- 
lord's family should fathom what I was doing, and detain me ; so I said 
to the young man that I would be glad if he would stop for a minute, 
when he came to the dead-wall of the King's Bench prison. The words 
were no sooner out of my mouth, than he rattled away as if he, my box, 
the cart, and the donkey, were all equally mad ; and I was quite out of 
breath with running and calling after him, when I caught him at the place 
appointed. 

Being much flushed and excited, I tumbled my half-guinea out of my 
pocket in pulling the card out. I put it in my mouth for safety, and 
though my hands trembled a good deal, had just tied the card on very much 
to my satisfaction, when I felt myself violently chucked under the chin by 
the long-legged young man, and saw my half-guinea fly out of my mouth 
into his hand. 

" Wot ! " said the young man, seizing me by my jacket collar, with a 
frightful grin. " This is a pollis case, is it ? You 're a going to bolt, are 
you ? Come to the pollis, you young warmin, come to the pollis ! " 

" You give me my money back, if you please," said I, very much 
frightened ; " and leave me alone." 

" Come to the pollis ! " said the young man. " You shall prove it 
yourn to the pollis." 

" Give me my box and money, will you," I cried, bursting into tears. 

The young man still replied : " Come to the pollis ! " and was dragging 
me against the donkey in a violent manner, as if there were any affinity 
between that animal and a magistrate, when he changed his mind, jumped 
into the cart, sat upon my box, and, exclaiming that he would drive to the 
pollis straight, rattled away harder than ever. 

I ran after him as fast as I could, but I had no breath to call out with, 
and should not have dared to call out, now, if I had. I narrowly escaped 
being run over, twenty times at least, in half a mile. Now I lost him, now I 
saw him, now I lost him, now I was cut at with a whip, now shouted at, 
now down in the mud, now up again, now running into somebody's arms, 
now running headlong at a post. At length, confused by fright and heat, 
and doubting whether half London might not by this time be turning out 
for my apprehension, I left the young man to go where he would with my box 
and money ; and, panting and crying, but never stopping, faced about for 
Greenwich, which I had understood was on the Dover Koad : taking very 
little more out of the world, towards the retreat of my aunt, Miss Betsey, 
than I had brought into it, on the night when my arrival gave her so 
much umbrage. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 129 

CHAPTER XIII. 

THE SEQUEL OF MY RESOLUTION. 

For anything I know, I may have had some wild idea of running all 
the way to Dover, when I gave up the pursuit of the young man with the 
donkey cart, and started for Greenwich. My scattered senses were 
soon collected as to that point, if I had ; for I came to a stop in the 
Kent Road, at a terrace with a piece of water before it, and a great foolish 
image in the middle, blowing a dry shell. Here I sat down on a door- 
step, quite spent and exhausted with the efforts I had already made, and 
with hardly breath enough to cry for the loss of my box and half- 
guinea. 

It was by this time dark ; I heard the clocks strike ten, as I sat resting. 
But it was a summer night, fortunately, and fine weather. When I had 
recovered my breath, and had got rid of a stifling sensation in my throat, I 
rose up and went on. In the midst of my distress, I had no notion of 
going back. I doubt if I should have had any, though there had been a 
Swiss snow-drift in the Kent Koad. 

But my standing possessed of only three-halfpence in the world (and 
I am sure I wonder how they came to be left in my pocket on a Saturday- 
night !) troubled me none the less because I went on. I began to picture 
to myself, as a scrap of newspaper intelligence, my being found dead in a 
day or two, under some hedge ; and I trudged on miserably, though as 
fast as I could, until I happened to pass a little shop, where it was written 
up that ladies' and gentlemen's wardrobes were bought, and that the best 
price was given for rags, bones, and kitchen-stuff. The master of this 
shop was sitting at the door in his shirt sleeves, smoking ; and as there 
were a great many coats and pairs of trowsers dangling from the low 
ceiling, and only two feeble candles burning inside to show what they 
were, I fancied that he looked like a man of a revengeful disposition, 
who had hung all his enemies, and was enjoying himself. 

My late experiences with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber suggested to me that 
here might be a means of keeping off the wolf for a little while. I went 
up the next bye-street, took off my waistcoat, rolled it neatly under my 
arm, and came back to the shop-door. " If you please, sir," I said, " I 
am to sell this for a fair price." 

Mr. Dolloby — Dolloby was the name over the shop-door, at least — 
took the waistcoat, stood his pipe on its head against the door-post, went 
into the shop, followed by me, snuffed the two candles with his fingers, 
spread the waistcoat on the counter, and looked at it there, held it up 
against the light, and looked at it there, and ultimately said : 

" What do you call a price, now, for this here little weskit ? " 

" Oh ! you know best, sir," I returned, modestly. 

" I can't be buyer and seller too," said Mr. Dolloby. " Put a price on 
this here little weskit." 

11 Would eighteenpence be " — I hinted, after some hesitation. 

K 



130 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Mr. Dolloby rolled it up again, and gave it me back. " I should rob 
my family," he said, " if I was to offer ninepence for it." 

This was a disagreeable way of putting the business ; because it imposed 
upon me, a perfect stranger, the unpleasantness of asking Mr. Dolloby to 
rob his family on my account. My circumstances being so very pressing, 
however, I said I would take ninepence for it, if he pleased. Mr. Dolloby, 
not without some grumbling, gave ninepence. I wished him good night, 
and walked out of the shop, the richer by that sum, and the poorer by a 
waistcoat. But when I buttoned my jacket, that was not much. 

Indeed, I foresaw pretty clearly that my jacket would go next, and that I 
should have to make the best of my way to Dover in a shirt and a pair of 
trowsers, and might deem myself lucky if I got there even in that trim. But 
my mind did not run so much on this as might be supposed. Beyond a 
general impression of the distance before me, and of the young man with 
the donkey-cart having used me cruelly, I think I had no very urgent sense 
of my difficulties when I once again set off with my ninepence in my pocket. 

A plan had occurred to me for passing the night, which I was going to 
carry into execution. This was, to lie behind the wall at the back of my 
old school, in a corner where there used to be a haystack. I imagined it 
would be a kind of company to have the boys, and the bed-room where 
I used to tell the stories, so near me : although the boys would know 
nothing of my being there, and the bed-room would yield me no shelter. 

I had had a hard day's work, and was pretty well jaded when I came 
climbing out, at last, upon the level of Blackheath. It cost me some 
trouble to find out Salem House ; but I found it, and I found a haystack 
in the corner, and I lay down by it ; having first walked round the wall, and 
looked up at the windows, and seen that all was dark and silent within. 
Never shall I forget the lonely sensation of first lying down, without a 
roof above my head ! 

Sleep came upon me as it came on many other outcasts, against whom 
house-doors were locked, and house-dogs barked, that night — and I 
dreamed of lying on my old school-bed, talking to the boys in my room ; 
and found myself sitting upright, with Steerforth's name upon my lips, 
looking wildly at the stars that were glistening and glimmering above me. 
When I remembered where I was at that untimely hour, a feeling stole 
upon me that made me get up, afraid of I don't know what, and walk 
about. But the fainter glimmering of the stars, and the pale light in the 
sky where the day was coming, reassured me : and my eyes being very 
heavy, I lay down again, and slept — though with a knowledge in my sleep 
that it was cold — until the warm beams of the sun, and the ringing of the 
getting-up bell at Salem House, awoke me. If I could have hoped that 
Steerforth was there, I would have lurked about until he came out alone ; 
but I knew he must have left long since. Traddles still remained, perhaps, 
but it was very doubtful; and I had not sufficient confidence in his discre- 
tion or good luck, however strong my reliance was on his good-nature, to 
wish to trust him with my situation. So I crept away from the wall as 
Mr. Creakle's boys were getting up, and struck into the long dusty track 
which I had first known to be the Dover road when I was one of them, 
and when I little expected that any eyes would ever see me the wayfarer 
I was now, upon it. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 131 

What a different Sunday morning from the old Sunday morning at 
Yarmouth ! In due time I heard the church-bells ringing, as I plodded on ; 
and I met people who were going to church ; and I passed a church or 
two where the congregation were inside, and the sound of singing came 
out into the sun-shine, while the beadle sat and cooled himself in the 
shade of the porch, or stood beneath the yew-tree, with his hand to his 
forehead, glowering at me going by. But the peace and rest of the old 
Sunday morning were on everything, except me. That was the difference. 
I felt quite wicked in my dirt and dust, and with my tangled hair. But 
for the quiet picture I had conjured up, of my mother in her youth and 
beauty, weeping by the fire, and my aunt relenting to her, I hardly 
think I should have had courage to go on until next day. But it always 
went before me, and I followed. 

I got, that Sunday, through three-and-twenty miles on the straight road, 
though not very easily, for I was new to that kind of toil. I see myself, 
as evening closes in, coming over the bridge at Rochester, footsore and 
tired, and eating bread that I had bought for supper. One or two little 
houses, with the notice, "Lodgings for Travellers," hanging out, had 
tempted me ; but I was afraid of spending the few pence I had, and was 
even more afraid of the vicious looks of the trampers I had met or over- 
taken. I sought no shelter, therefore, but the sky ; and toiling into 
Chatham, — which, in that night's aspect, is a mere dream of chalk, and 
drawbridges, and mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed like Noah's 
arks, — crept, at last, upon a sort of grass-grown battery overhanging a 
lane, where a sentry was walking to and fro. Here I lay down, near a 
cannon ; and, happy in the society of the sentry's footsteps, though he 
knew no more of my being above him than the boys at Salem House had 
known of my lying by the wall, slept soundly until morning. 

Very stiff and sore of foot I was in the morning, and quite dazed by 
the beating of drums and marching of troops, which seemed to hem me 
in on every side when I went down towards the long narrow street. 
Feeling that I could go but a very little way that day, if I were to reserve 
any strength for getting to my journey's end, I resolved to make the sale 
of my jacket its principal business. Accordingly, I took the jacket off, 
that I might learn to do without it ; and carrying it under my arm, 
began a tour of inspection of the various slop-shops. 

It was a likely place to sell a jacket in ; for the dealers in second-hand 
clothes were numerous, and were, generally speaking, on the look-out for 
customers at their shop-doors. But as most of them had, hanging up 
among their stock, an officer's coat or two, epaulettes and all, I was 
rendered timid by the costly nature of their dealings, and walked about 
for a long time without offering my merchandize to any one. 

This modesty of mine directed my attention to the marine-store shops, 
and such shops as Mr. Dolloby's, in preference to the regular dealers. At 
last I found one that I thought looked promising, at the corner of a dirty 
lane, ending in an inclosure full of stinging nettles, against the palings of 
which some second-hand sailors' clothes, that seemed to have overflowed 
the shop, were fluttering among some cots, and rusty guns, and oilskin 
hats, and certain trays full of so many old rusty keys of so many sizes 
that they seemed various enough to open all the doors in the world. 

K 2 



132 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Into this shop, which was low and small, and which was darkened 
rather than lighted by a little window, overhung with clothes, and was 
descended into by some steps, I went with a palpitating heart ; which was 
not relieved when an ugly old man, with the lower part of his face all 
covered with a stubbly grey beard, rushed out of a dirty den behind it, 
and seized me by the hair of my head. He was a dreadful old man to 
look at, in a filthy flannel waistcoat, and smelling terribly of rum. His 
bedstead, covered with a tumbled and ragged piece of patchwork, was in 
the den he had come from, where another little window showed a prospect 
of more stinging nettles, and a lame donkey. 

" Oh, what do you want ? " grinned this old man, in a fierce, mono- 
tonous whine. " Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want ? Oh, my lungs, 
and liver, what do you want ? Oh, goroo, goroo ! " 

I was so much dismayed by these words, and particularly by the repe- 
tition of the last unknown one, which was a kind of rattle in his throat, 
that I could make no answer ; hereupon the old man, still holding me by 
the hair, repeated : 

" Oh, what do you want ? Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want ? 
Oh, my lungs and liver, what do you want! Oh, goroo!" — which he 
screwed out of himself, with an energy that made his eyes start in his 
head. 

" I wanted to know," I said, trembling, " if you would buy a jacket." 

" Oh, let 's see the jacket ! " cried the old man. " Oh, my heart on fire, 
show the jacket to us ! Oh, my eyes and limbs, bring the jacket out ! " 

With that he took his trembling hands, which were like the claws of a 
great bird, out of my hair ; and put on a pair of spectacles, not at all 
ornamental to his inflamed eyes. 

" Oh, how much for the jacket ?" cried the old man, after examining it. 
" Oh — goroo ! — how much for the jacket?" 

" Half-a-crown," I answered, recovering myself. 

" Oh, my lungs and liver," cried the old man, " no ! Oh, my eyes, no ! 
Oh, my limbs, no ! Eighteenpence. Goroo ! " 

Every time he uttered this ejaculation, his eyes seemed to be in danger 
of starting out ; and every sentence he spoke, he delivered in a sort of 
tune, always exactly the same, and more like a gust of wind, which begins 
low, mounts up high, and falls again, than any other comparison I can 
find for it. 

" Well," said I, glad to have closed the bargain, "I '11 take eighteen- 
pence." 

" Oh, my liver!" cried the old man, throwing the jacket on a shelf. 
" Get out of the shop ! Oh, my lungs, get out of the shop ! Oh, my 
eyes and limbs — goroo ! — don 't ask for money ; make it an exchange." 

I never was so frightened in my life, before or since ; but I told him 
humbly that I wanted money, and that nothing else was of any use to me, 
but that I would wait for it, as he desired, outside, and had no wish to 
hurry him. So I went outside, and sat down in the shade in a corner. 
And I sat there so many hours, that the shade became sunlight, and the 
sunlight became shade again, and still I sat there waiting for the money. 

There never was such another drunken madman in that line of business, 
I hope. That he was well known in the neighbourhood, and enjoyed the 



OF DAVID COPPE11FIELD. 133 

reputation of having sold himself to the devil, I soon understood from 
the visits he received from the boys, who continually came skirmishing 
about the shop, shouting that legend, and calling to him to bring out his 
gold. " You ain't poor, you know, Charley, as you pretend. Bring out 
your gold. Bring out some of the gold you sold yourself to the devil for. 
Come ! It 's in the lining of the mattress, Charley. Rip it open and let 's 
have some ! " This, and many offers to lend him a knife for the purpose, 
exasperated him to such a degree, that the whole day was a succession of 
rushes on his part, and nights on the part of the boys. Sometimes in 
his rage he would take me for one of them, and come at me, mouthing as if 
he were going to tear me in pieces ; then, remembering me, just in time, 
would dive into the shop, and lie upon his bed, as I thought from the 
sound of his voice, yelling in a frantic way, to his own windy tune, the 
Death of Nelson ; with an Oh ! before every line, and innumerable Goroos 
interspersed. As if this were not bad enough for me, the boys, connecting 
me with the establishment, on account of the patience and perseverance 
with which I sat outside, half-dressed, pelted me, and used me very ill all day. 

He made many attempts to induce me to consent to an exchange ; at 
one time coming out with a fishing-rod, at another with a fiddle, at another 
with a cocked hat, at another with a flute. But I resisted all these 
overtures, and sat there in desperation ; each time asking him, with tears 
in my eyes, for my money or my jacket. At last he began to pay me in 
halfpence at a time ; and was full two hours getting by easy stages to a 
shilling. 

" Oh, my eyes and limbs ! " he then cried, peeping hideously out of the 
shop, after a long pause, " will you go for twopence more?" 

" I can't," I said; "I shall be starved." 

" Oh, my lungs and liver, will you go for threepence?" 

" I would go for nothing, if I could," I said, " but I want the money 
badly." 

" Oh, go — roo ! " (it is really impossible to express how he twisted this 
ejaculation out of himself, as he peeped round the doorpost at me, showing 
nothing but his crafty old head) ; " will you go for fourpence ? " 

I was so faint and weary that I closed with this offer ; and taking the 
money out of his claw, not without trembling, went away more hungry 
and thirsty than I had ever been, a little before sunset. But at an 
expense of threepence I soon refreshed myself completely ; and, being in 
better spirits then, limped seven miles upon my road. 

My bed at night was under another haystack, where I rested comfort- 
ably, after having washed my blistered feet in a stream, and dressed them 
as well as I was able, with some cool leaves. When I took the road again 
next morning, I found that it lay through a succession of hop-grounds and 
orchards. It was sufficiently late in the year for the orchards to be ruddy 
with ripe apples ; and in a few places the hop-pickers were already at 
work. I thought it all extremely beautiful, and made up my mind to 
sleep among the hops that night : imagining some cheerful companion- 
ship in the long perspectives of poles, with the graceful leaves twining 
round them. 

The trampers were worse than ever that day, and inspired me with a 
dread that is yet quite fresh in my mind. Some of them were most 



134 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

ferocious-looking ruffians, who stared at me as I went by ; and stopped, 
perhaps, and called after me to come back and speak to them ; and when 
I took to my heels, stoned me. I recollect one young fellow — a tinker, I 
suppose, from his wallet and brazier — who had a woman with him, and 
who faced about and stared at me thus ; and then roared to me in such a 
tremendous voice to come back, that I halted and looked round. 

"Come here, when you're called," said the tinker, "or I'll rip your 
young body open." 

I thought it best to go back. As I drew nearer to them, trying to 
propitiate the tinker by my looks, I observed that the woman had a black 
eye. 

"Where are you going?" said the tinker, griping the bosom of my 
shirt with his blackened hand. 

" I am going to Dover," I said. 

"Where do you come from?" asked the tinker, giving his hand 
another turn in my shirt, to hold me more securely. 

" I come from London," I said. 

" What lav are you upon ? " asked the tinker. " Are you a prig ? " 

" N— no," I said. 

"Ain't you, by G — ? If you make a brag of your honesty to me," 
said the tinker, " I '11 knock your brains out." 

With his disengaged hand he made a menace of striking me, and then 
looked at me from head to foot. 

"Have you got the price of a pint of beer about you?" said the 
tinker. " If you have, out with it, afore I take it away ! " 

I should certainly have produced it, but that I met the woman's look, 
and saw her very slightly shake her head, and form " No ! " with her 
lips. 

"I am very poor," I said, attempting to smile, " and have got no 
money." 

" Why, what do you mean? " said the tinker, looking so sternly at me, 
that I almost feared he saw the money in my pocket. 

" Sir ! " I stammered. 

"What do you mean," said the tinker, "by wearing my brother's silk 
hankercher ? Give it over here ! " And he had mine off my neck in a 
moment, and tossed it to the woman. 

The woman burst into a fit of laughter, as if she thought this a joke, 
and tossing it back to me, nodded once, as slightly as before, and made 
the word " Go ! " with her lips. Before I could obey, however, the tinker 
seized the handkerchief out of my hand with a roughness that threw me 
away like a feather, and putting it loosely round his own neck, turned 
upon the woman with an oath, and knocked her down. I never shall 
forget seeing her fall backward on the hard road, and lie there with her 
bonnet tumbled off, and her hair all whitened in the dust ; nor, when I 
looked back from a distance, seeing her sitting on the pathway, which was 
a bank by the roadside, wiping the blood from her face with a corner of 
her shawl, while he went on ahead. 

This adventure frightened me so, that, afterwards, when I saw any of 
these people coming, I turned back until I could find a hiding-place, 
where I remained until they had gone out of sight ; which happened so 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 135 

often, that I was very seriously delayed. But under this difficulty, as 
under all the other difficulties of my journey, I seemed to be sustained 
and led on by my fanciful picture of my mother in her youth, before I 
came into the world. It always kept me company. It was there, among 
the hops, when I lay down to sleep ; it was with me on my waking in 
the morning ; it went before me all day. I have associated it, ever since, 
with the sunny street of Canterbury, dozing as it were in the hot light ; 
and with the sight of its old houses and gateways, and the stately, grey 
Cathedral, with the rooks sailing round the towers. When I came, at 
last, upon the bare, wide downs near Dover, it relieved the solitary aspect 
of the scene with hope ; and not until I reached that first great aim of 
my journey, and actually set foot in the town itself, on the sixth day of 
my flight, did it desert me. But then, strange to say, when I stood with 
my ragged shoes, and my dusty, sunburnt, half-clothed figure, in the 
place so long desired, it seemed to vanish like a dream, and to leave me 
helpless and dispirited. 

I inquired about my aunt among the boatmen first, and received various 
answers. One said she lived in the South Foreland Light, and had 
singed her whiskers by doing so ; another, that she was made fast to the 
great buoy outside the harbor, and could only be visited at half-tide ; 
a third, that she was locked up in Maidstone Jail for child- stealing ; a 
fourth, that she was seen to mount a broom in the last high wind, and 
make direct for Calais. The fly-drivers, among whom I inquired next, 
were equally jocose and equally disrespectful ; and the shopkeepers, not 
liking my appearance, generally replied, without hearing what I had to 
say, that they had got nothing for me. I felt more miserable and destitute 
than I had done at any period of my running away. My money was all 
gone, I had nothing left to dispose of; I was hungry, thirsty, and worn 
out ; and seemed as distant from my end as if I had remained in London. 

The morning had worn away in these inquiries, and I was sitting on 
the step of an empty shop at a street corner, near the market-place, 
deliberating upon wandering towards those other places which had been 
mentioned, when a fly-driver, coming by with his carriage, dropped a 
horsecloth. Something good-natured in the man's face, as I handed it up, 
encouraged me to ask him if he could tell me where Miss Trotwood lived ; 
though I had asked the question so often, that it almost died upon my lips. 

" Trotwood," said he. " Let me see. I know the name, too. Old lady ? " 

"Yes," I said, "rather." 

" Pretty stiff in the back ? " said he, making himself upright. 

" Yes," I said. " I should think it very likely." 

" Carries a bag ? " said he — "bag with a good deal of room in it — is 
gruffish, and comes down upon you, sharp ? " 

My heart sank within me as I acknowledged the undoubted accuracy of 
this description. 

" Why then, I tell you what," said he. " If you go up there," pointing 
with his whip towards the heights, " and keep right on till you come to 
some houses facing the sea, I think you '11 hear of her. My opinion is 
she won't stand anything, so here 's a penny for you." 

I accepted the gift thankfully, and bought a loaf with it. Dispatch- 
ing this refreshment by the way, I went in the direction my friend had 



136 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

indicated, and walked on a good distance without coming to the houses he 
had mentioned. At length I saw some before me; and approaching them, 
went into a little shop (it was what we used to call a general shop, at 
home), and inquired if they could have the goodness to tell me where 
Miss Trotwood lived. I addressed myself to a man behind the counter, 
who was weighing some rice for a young woman ; but the latter, taking 
the inquiry to herself, turned round quickly. 

" My mistress ?" she said. " What do you want with her, boy ? " 

"I want," I replied, "to speak to her, if you please." 

" To beg of her, you mean," retorted the damsel. 

" No," I said, " indeed." But suddenly remembering that in truth I 
came for no other purpose, I held my peace in confusion, and felt my face 
burn. 

My aunt's handmaid, as I supposed she was from what she had said, 
put her rice in a little basket and walked out of the shop ; telling me that 
I could follow her, if I wanted to know where Miss Trotwood lived. 
I needed no second permission ; though I was by this time in such a state 
of consternation and agitation, that my legs shook under me. I followed 
the young woman, and we soon came to a very neat little cottage with 
cheerful bow-windows : in front of it, a small square gravelled court or 
garden full of flowers, carefully tended, and smelling deliriously. 

" This is Miss Trotwood's," said the young woman. " Now you know ; 
and that 's all I have got to say." With which words she hurried into the 
house, as if to shake off the responsibility of my appearance ; and left me 
standing at the garden-gate, looking disconsolately over the top of it 
towards the parlor-window, where a muslin curtain partly undrawn in the 
middle, a large round green screen or fan fastened on to the window-sill, a 
small table, and a great chair, suggested to me that my aunt might be 
at that moment seated in awful state. 

My shoes were by this time in a woeful condition. The soles had shed 
themselves bit by bit, and the upper leathers had broken and burst until 
the very shape and form of shoes had departed from them. My hat 
(which had served me for a night-cap, too) was so crushed and bent, that 
no old battered handle-less saucepan on a dunghill need have been 
ashamed to vie with it. My shirt and trowsers, stained with heat, dew, 
grass, and the Kentish soil on which I had slept — and torn besides — 
might have frightened the birds from my aunt's garden, as I stood at the 
gate. My hair had known no comb or brush since I left London. My 
face, neck, and hands, from unaccustomed exposure to the air and sun, 
were burnt to a berry-brown. From head to foot I was powdered almost 
as white with chalk and dust, as if I had come out of a lime-kiln. In 
this plight, and with a strong consciousness of it, I waited to introduce 
myself to, and make my first impression on, my formidable aunt. 

The unbroken stillness of the parlor-window leading me to infer, after 
a-while, that she was not there, I lifted up my eyes to the window above 
it, where I saw a florid, pleasant-looking gentleman, with a grey head, 
who shut up one eye in a grotesque manner, nodded his head at me 
several times, shook it at me as often, laughed, and went away. 

I had been discomposed enough before • but I was so much the more 
discomposed by this unexpected behaviour, that I was on the point of 




/??za^ey /tt^Xs/^// ,-, t ■ a y/ 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 137 

slinking off, to think how I had best proceed, when there came out of the 
house a lady with a handkerchief tied over her cap, and a pair of gardening- 
gloves on her hands, wearing a gardening pocket like a tollman's apron, 
and carrying a great knife. I knew her immediately to be Miss Betsey, 
for she came stalking out of the house exactly as my poor mother had 
so often described her stalking up our garden at Blunderstone Rookery. 

" Go away ! " said Miss Betsey, shaking her head, and making a dis- 
tant chop in the air with her knife. " Go along ! No boys here ! " 

I watched her, with my heart at my lips, as she marched to a corner of 
her garden, and stooped to dig up some little root there. Then, without 
a scrap of courage, but with a great deal of desperation, I went softly in 
and stood beside her, touching her with my finger. 

" If you please, ma'am," I began. 

She started, and looked up. 

" If you please, aunt." 

" Eh ? " exclaimed Miss Betsey, in a tone of amazement I have never 
heard approached. 

" If you please, aunt, I am your nephew." 

" Oh, Lord ! " said my aunt. And sat flat down in the garden-path. 

" I am David Copperfield, of Blunderstone, in Suffolk — where you 
came, on the night when I was born, and saw my dear mama. I have 
been very unhappy since she died. I have been slighted, and taught 
nothing, and thrown upon myself, and put to work not fit for me. It 
made me run away to you. I was robbed at first setting out, and have 
walked all the way, and have never slept in a bed since I began the 
journey." Here my self-support gave way all at once ; and with a move- 
ment of my hands, intended to show her my ragged state, and call it to 
witness that I had suffered something, I broke into a passion of crying, 
which I suppose had been pent up within me all the week. 

My aunt, with every sort of expression but wonder discharged from her 
countenance, sat on the gravel, staring at me, until I began to cry ; when 
she got up in a great hurry, collared me, and took me into the parlor. 
Her first proceeding there was to unlock a tall press, bring out several 
bottles, and pour some of the contents of each into my mouth. I think 
they must have been taken out at random, for I am sure I tasted aniseed 
water, anchovy sauce, and salad dressing. When she had administered 
these restoratives, as I was still quite hysterical, and unable to controul 
my sobs, she put me on the sofa, with a shawl under my head, and the 
handkerchief from her own head under my feet, lest I should sully the 
cover ; and then, sitting herself down behind the green fan or screen I have 
already mentioned, so that I could not see her face, ejaculated at intervals, 
" Mercy on us ! " letting those exclamations off like minute guns. 

After a time she rang the bell. " Janet," said my aunt, when her 
servant came in. " Go up stairs, give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and 
say I wish to speak to him." 

Janet looked a little surprised to see me lying stiffly on the sofa (I was 
afraid to move lest it should be displeasing to my aunt), but went on her 
errand. My aunt, with her hands behind her, walked up and down the 
room, until the gentleman who had squinted at me from the upper window 
came in laughing. 



138 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Mr. Dick," said my aunt, " don't be a fool, because nobody can be 
more discreet than you can, when you choose. We all know that. So 
don't be a fool, whatever you are." * 

The gentleman was serious immediately, and looked at me, I thought, 
as if he would entreat me to say nothing about the window. 

" Mr. Dick," said my aunt, " you have heard me mention David Copper- 
field ? Now don't pretend not to have a memory, because you and I 
know better." 

"David Copperfield?" said Mr. Dick, who did not appear to me to 
remember much about it. "David Copperfield? Oh yes, to be sure. 
David, certainly." 

"Well," said my aunt, "this is his boy — his son. He would be as 
like his father as it 's possible to be, if he was not so like his mother, too." 

" His son ? " said Mr. Dick. " David's son ? Indeed ! " 

" Yes," pursued my aunt, " and he has done a pretty piece of business. 
He has run away. Ah ! His sister, Betsey Trotwood, never would have 
run away." My aunt shook her head firmly, confident in the character 
and behaviour of the girl who never was born. 

" Oh ! you think she wouldn't have run away ? " said Mr. Dick. 

"Bless and save the man," exclaimed my aunt, sharply, "how he 
talks ! Don't I know she wouldn't ? She would have lived with her 
god-mother, and we should have been devoted to one another. Where, 
in the name of wonder, should his sister, Betsey Trotwood, have run from, 
or to?" 

"Nowhere," said Mr. Dick. 

" Well then," returned my aunt, softened by the reply, " how can you 
pretend to be wool-gathering, Dick, when you are as sharp as a surgeon's 
lancet ? Now, here you see young David Copperfield, and the question I 
put to you is, what shall I do with him ? " 

" What shall you do with him ? " said Mr. Dick, feebly, scratching his 
head. "Oh! do with him?" 

"Yes," said my aunt, with a grave look and her forefinger held up. 
" Come ! I want some very sound advice." 

" Why, if I was you," said Mr. Dick, considering, and looking vacantly 
at me, " I should — " The contemplation of me seemed to inspire him 
with a sudden idea, and he added, briskly, " I should wash him ! " 

" Janet," said my aunt, turning round with a quiet triumph, which I 
did not then understand, " Mr. Dick sets us all right. Heat the bath ! " 

Although I was deeply interested in this dialogue, I could not help 
observing my aunt, Mr. Dick, and Janet, while it was in progress, and 
completing a survey I had already been engaged in making of the room. 

My aunt was a tall, hard-featured lady, but by no means ill-looking. 
There was an inflexibility in her face, in her voice, in her gait and car- 
riage, amply sufficient to account for the effect she had made upon a 
gentle creature like my mother ; but her features were rather handsome 
than otherwise, though unbending and austere. I particularly noticed 
that she had a very quick, bright eye. Her hair, which was grey, was 
arranged in two plain divisions, under what I believe would be called, a 
mob-cap : I mean a cap, much more common then than now, with side- 
pieces fastening under the chin. Her dress was of a lavender color, and 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 139 

perfectly neat ; but scantily made, as if she desired to be as little encum- 
bered as possible. I remember that I thought it, in form, more like a 
riding-habit with the superfluous skirt cut off, than anything else. She 
wore at her side a gentleman's gold watch, if I might judge from its size 
and make, with an appropriate chain and seals ; she had some linen at her 
throat not unlike a shirt-collar, and things at her wrists like little shirt- 
wristbands. 

Mr. Dick, as I have already said, was grey-headed, and florid : I should 
have said all about him, in saying so, had not his head been curiously 
bowed — not by age ; it reminded me of one of Mr. Creakle's boys' heads 
after a beating — and his grey eyes prominent and large, with a strange 
kind of watery brightness in them that made me, in combination with his 
vacant manner, his submission to my aunt, and his childish delight when 
she praised him, suspect him of being a little mad ; though, if he were 
mad, how he came to be there puzzled me extremely. He was dressed 
like any other ordinary gentleman, in a loose grey morning coat and waist- 
coat, and white trowsers ; and had his watch in his fob, and his money in 
his pockets : which he rattled as if he were very proud of it. 

Janet was a pretty blooming girl, of about nineteen or twenty, 
and a perfect picture of neatness. Though I made no further obser- 
vation of her at the moment, I may mention here what I did not 
discover until afterwards, namely, that she was one of a series of protegees 
whom my aunt had taken into her service expressly to educate in a 
renouncement of mankind, and who had generally completed their abjura- 
tion by marrying the baker. 

The room was as neat as Janet or my aunt. As I laid down my pen, 
a moment since, to think of it, the air from the sea came blowing in 
again, mixed with the perfume of the flowers ; and I saw the old-fashioned 
furniture brightly rubbed and polished, my aunt's inviolable chair and 
table by the round green fan in the bow-window, the drugget-covered 
carpet, the cat, the kettle-holder, the two canaries, the old china, the punch- 
bowl full of dried rose leaves, the tall press guarding all sorts of bottles and 
pots, and, wonderfully out of keeping with the rest, my dusty self upon 
the sofa, taking note of everything. 

Janet had gone away to get the bath ready, when my aunt, to my great 
alarm, became in one moment rigid with indignation, and had hardly voice 
to cry out, " Janet ! Donkies ! " 

Upon which, Janet came running up the stairs as if the house were in 
flames, darted out on a little piece of green in front, and warned oiF two 
saddle-donkeys, lady-ridden, that had presumed to set hoof upon it ; 
while my aunt, rushing out of the house, seized the bridle of a third 
animal laden with a bestriding child, turned him, led him forth from 
those sacred precincts, and boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin in 
attendance who had dared to profane that hallowed ground. 

To this hour I don't know whether my aunt had any lawful right of way 
over that patch of green ; but she had settled it in her own mind that 
she had, and it was all the same to her. The one great outrage of her life, 
demanding to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey ever that 
immaculate spot. In whatever occupation she was engaged, however 
interesting to her the conversation in which she was taking part, a donkey 



140 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

turned the current of her ideas in a moment, and she was upon him straight. 
Jugs of water, and watering pots, were kept in secret places ready to be 
discharged on the offending boys ; sticks were laid in ambush behind the 
door; sallies were made at all hours; and incessant war prevailed. 
Perhaps this was an agreeable excitement to the donkey -boys ; or perhaps 
the more sagacious of the donkeys, understanding how the case stood, 
delighted with constitutional obstinacy in coming that way. I only 
know that there were three alarms before the bath was ready ; and that 
on the occasion of the last and most desperate of all, I saw my aunt 
engage, single-handed, with a sandy-headed lad of fifteen, and bump his 
sandy head against her own gate, before he seemed to comprehend 
what was the matter. These interruptions were the more ridiculous to 
me, because she was giving me broth out of a table-spoon at the time 
(having firmly persuaded herself that I was actually starving, and must 
receive nourishment at first in very small quantities), and, while my mouth 
was yet open to receive the spoon, she would put it back into the basin, 
cry " Janet ! Donkies ! " and go out to the assault. 

The bath was a great comfort. For I began to be sensible of acute 
pains in my limbs from lying out in the fields, and was now so tired and 
low that I could hardly keep myself awake for five minutes together. 
When I had bathed, they (I mean my aunt and Janet) enrobed me in a 
shirt and a pair of trowsers belonging to Mr. Dick, and tied me up in two 
or three great shawls. What sort of bundle I looked like, I don't know, 
but I felt a very hot one. Feeling also very faint and drowsy, I soon lay 
down on the sofa again and fell asleep. 

It might have been a dream, originating in the fancy which had occu- 
pied my mind so long, but I awoke with the impression that my aunt 
had come and bent over me, and had put my hah* away from my face, and 
laid my head more comfortably, and had then stood looking at me. The 
words, " Pretty fellow," or " Poor fellow," seemed to be in my ears, too ; 
but certainly there was nothing else, when I awoke, to lead me to believe 
that they had been uttered by my aunt, who sat in the bow-window 
gazing at the sea from behind the green fan, which was mounted on a 
kind of swivel, and turned any way. 

We dined soon after I awoke, off a roast fowl and a pudding ; I sitting 
at table, not unlike a trussed bird myself, and moving my arms with con- 
siderable difficulty. But as my aunt had swathed me up, I made no 
complaint of being inconvenienced. All this time, I was deeply anxious 
to know what she was going to do with me ; but she took her dinner in 
profound silence, except when she occasionally fixed her eyes on me sitting 
opposite, and said, " Mercy upon us ! " which did not by any means 
relieve my anxiety. 

The cloth being drawn, and some sherry put upon the table (of which I 
had a glass), my aunt sent up for Mr. Dick again, who joined us, and 
looked as wise as he could when she requested him to attend to my story, 
which she elicited from me, gradually, by a course of questions. During 
my recital, she kept her eyes on Mr. Dick, who I thought would have 
gone to sleep but for that, and who, whensoever he lapsed into a smile, 
was checked by a frown from my aunt. 

" Whatever possessed that poor unfortunate Baby, that she must go 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 141 

and be married again," said my aunt, when I had finished, li I can't 
conceive-" 

"Perhaps she fell in love with her second husband," Mr. Dick sug- 



Fell in love!" repeated my aunt, "What do you mean? What 
business had she to do it ? " 

" Perhaps," Mr. Dick simpered, after thinking a little, " she did it for 
pleasure." 

" Pleasure, indeed ! " replied my aunt. " A mighty pleasure for the 
poor baby to fix her simple faith upon any dog of a fellow, certain to ill- 
use her in some way or other. What did she propose to herself, I should 
like to know ! She had had one husband. She had seen David Copper- 
field out of the world, who was always running after wax dolls from his 
cradle. She had got a baby — oh, there were a pair of babies when she 
gave birth to this child sitting here, that Friday night ! — and what more 
did she want ? " 

Mr. Dick secretly shook his head at me, as if he thought there was no 
getting over this. 

" She couldn't even have a baby like anybody else," said my aunt, 
" Where was this child's sister, Betsey Trotwood ! Not forthcoming. 
Don't teR me ! " 

Mr. Dick seemed quite frightened. 

" That little man of a doctor, with his head on one side," said my aunt, 
" Jellips, or whatever his name was, what was he about ? All he could do, 
was to say to me, like a robin redbreast — as he is — ' It 's a boy.' A boy ! 
Yah, the imbecility of the whole set of 'em ! " 

The heartiness of the ejaculation startled Mr. Dick exceedingly ; and me, 
too, if I am to tell the truth. 

" And then, as if this was not enough, and she had not stood sufficiently 
in the light of this child's sister, Betsey Trotwood," said my aunt, " she 
marries a second time — goes and marries a Murderer — or a man with a 
name like it — and stands in this child's light! And the natural consequence 
is, as anybody but a baby might have foreseen, that he prowls and wanders. 
He 's as like Cain before he was grown up, as he can be." 

Mr. Dick looked hard at me, as if to identify me in this character. 

"And then there's that woman with the Pagan name," said my aunt, 
" that Peggotty, she goes and gets married next. Because she has not 
seen enough of the evil attending such things, she goes and gets married 
next, as the child relates. I only hope," said my aunt, shaking her head, 
" that her husband is one of those Poker husbands who abound in the 
newspapers, and will beat her well with one." 

I could not bear to hear my old nurse so decried, and made the subject 
of such a wish. I told my aunt that indeed she was mistaken. That 
Peggotty was the best, the truest, the most faithful, most devoted, and 
most self-denying friend and servant in the world ; who had ever loved 
me dearly, who had ever loved my mother dearly ; who had held my 
mother's dying head upon her arm, on whose face my mother had im- 
printed her last grateful kiss. And my remembrance of them both, 
choking me, I broke down as I was trying to say that her home 
was my home, and that all she had was mine, and that I would have 



142 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

gone to her for shelter, but for her humble station, which made 
me fear that I might bring some trouble on her — I broke down, I 
say, as I was trying to say so, and laid my face in my hands upon 
the table. 

" Well, well ! " said my aunt, " the child is right to stand by those who 
have stood by him — Janet ! Donkies ! " 

I thoroughly believe that but for those unfortunate donkies, we should 
have come to a good understanding ; for my aunt had laid her hand 
on my shoulder, and the impulse was upon me, thus emboldened, 
to embrace her and beseech her protection. But the interruption, and the 
disorder she was thrown into by the struggle outside, put an end to all 
softer ideas for the present ; and kept my aunt indignantly declaiming to 
Mr. Dick about her determination to appeal for redress to the laws of her 
country, and to bring actions for trespass against the whole donkey pro- 
prietorship of Dover, until tea-time. 

After tea, we sat at the window — on the look-out, as I imagined, from 
my aunt's sharp expression of face, for more invaders — until dusk, when 
Janet set candles, and a backgammon-board, on the table, and pulled 
down the blinds. 

" Now, Mr. Dick," said my aunt, with her grave look, and her fore- 
finger up as before, " I am going to ask you another question. Look at 
this child." 

"David's son? " said Mr. Dick, with an attentive, puzzled face. 

" Exactly so," returned my aunt. " What would you do with him, now ?" 

" Do with David's son ?" said Mr. Dick. 

"Ay," replied my aunt, "with David's son." 

" Oh ! " said Mr. Dick. " Yes. Do with — I should put him to 
bed." 

" Janet ! " cried my aunt, with the same complacent triumph that I had 
remarked before. " Mr. Dick sets us all right. If the bed is ready, we '11 
take him up to it." 

Janet reporting it to be quite ready, I was taken up to it ; kindly, but 
in some sort like a prisoner ; my aunt going in front and Janet bring- 
ing up the rear. The only circumstance which gave me any new hope, 
was my aunt's stopping on the stairs to inquire about a smell of fire that 
was prevalent there ; and Janet's replying that she had been making tinder 
down in the kitchen, of my old shirt. But there were no other clothes 
in my room than the odd heap of things I wore ; and when I was left 
there, with a little taper which my aunt forewarned me would burn, 
exactly five minutes, I heard them lock my door on the outside. Turning 
these things over in my mind, I deemed it possible that my aunt, who 
could know nothing of me, might suspect I had a habit of running away, 
and took precautions, on that account, to have me in safe keeping. 

The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, overlooking the 
sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly. After I had said my 
prayers, and the candle had burnt out, I remember how I still sat looking 
at the moonlight on the water, as if I could hope to read my fortune in 
it, as in a bright book ; or to see my mother with her child, coming from 
Heaven, along that shining path, to look upon me as she had looked 
when I last saw her sweet face. I remember how the solemn feeling 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 143 

with which at length i turned my eyes away, yielded to the sensation of 
gratitude and rest which the sight of the white-curtained bed — and how 
much more the lying softly down upon it, nestling in the snow-white 
sheets ! — inspired. I remember how I thought of all the solitary places 
under the night sky where I had slept, and how I prayed that I never 
might be houseless any more, and never might forget the houseless. 
I remember how I seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of 
that track upon the sea, away into the world of dreams. 



CHAPTER XIY. 

MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME. 

On going down in the morning, I found my aunt musing so profoundly 
over the breakfast-table, with her elbow on the tray, that the contents of 
the urn had overflowed the teapot and were laying the whole table-cloth 
under water, when my entrance put her meditations to flight. I felt sure 
that I had been the subject of her reflections, and was more than ever 
anxious to know her intentions towards me. Yet I dared not express my 
anxiety, lest it should give her offence. 

My eyes, however, not being so much under controul as my tongue, 
were attracted towards my aunt very often during breakfast. I never 
could look at her for a few moments together but I found her looking at 
me — in an odd thoughtful manner, as if I were an immense way off, 
instead of being on the other side of the small round table. When she 
had finished her breakfast, my aunt very deliberately leaned back in her 
chair, knitted her brows, folded her arms, and contemplated me at her 
leisure, with such a fixedness of attention that I was quite overpowered 
by embarrassment. Not having as yet finished my own breakfast, I 
attempted to hide my confusion by proceeding with it; but my knife 
tumbled over my fork, my fork tripped up my knife, I chipped bits of 
bacon a surprising height into the air instead of cutting them for my own 
eating, and choked myself with my tea which persisted in going the wrong 
way instead of the right one, until I gave in altogether, and sat blushing 
under my aunt's close scrutiny. 

" Hallo ! " said my aunt, after a long time. 

I looked up, and met her sharp bright glance respectfully. 

" I have written to him," said my aunt. 

"To—?" 

" To your father-in-law," said my aunt. " I have sent him a letter 
that I '11 trouble him to attend to, or he and I will fall out, I can tell him ! " 

" Does he know where I am, aunt? " I inquired, alarmed. 

" I have told him," said my aunt, with a nod. 

" Shall I — be — given up to him ? " I faltered. 

" I don't know," said my aunt. " We shall see." 

"Oh! I can't think what I shall do," I exclaimed, "if I have to go 
back to Mr. Murdstone ! " 



144 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" I don't know anything about it," said my aunt, shaking her head. 
" I can't say, I am sure. We shall see." 

My spirits sank under these words, and I became very downcast and 
heavy of heart. My aunt, without appearing to take much heed of me, 
put on a coarse apron with a bib, which she took out of the press ; washed 
up the teacups with her own hands ; and, when everything was washed 
and set in the tray again, and the cloth folded and put on the top of 
the whole, rang for Janet to remove it. She next swept up the 
crumbs with a little broom (putting on a pair of gloves first), until 
there did not appear to be one microscopic speck left on the carpet ; next 
dusted and arranged the room, which was dusted and arranged to a hair's 
breadth already. When all these tasks were performed to her satisfaction, 
she took off the gloves and apron, folded them up, put them in the parti- 
cular corner of the press from which they had been taken, brought out 
her work-box to her own table in the open window, and sat down, with 
the green fan between her and the light, to work. 

" I wish you'd go up stairs," said my aunt, as she threaded her needle, 
" and give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and I '11 be glad to know how 
he gets on with his Memorial." 

I rose with all alacrity, to acquit myself of this commission. 

" I suppose," said my aunt, eyeing me as narrowly as she had eyed 
the needle in threading it, " you think Mr. Dick a short name, eh ? " 

" I thought it was rather a short name, yesterday," I confessed. 

" You are not to suppose that he hasn't got a longer name, if he chose 
to use it," said my aunt, with a loftier air. "Babley — Mr. Eichard 
Babley — that 's the gentleman's true name." 

I was going to suggest, with a modest sense of my youth and the 
familiarity I had been already guilty of, that I had better give him the 
full benefit of that name, when my aunt went on to say : 

" But don't you call him by it, whatever you do. He can't bear his 
name. That's a peculiarity of his. Though I don't know that it's 
much of a peculiarity, either ; for he has been ill-used enough, by some that 
bear it, to have a mortal antipathy for it, Heaven knows. Mr. Dick is his 
name here, and everywhere else, now — if he ever went anywhere else, which 
he don't. So take care, child, you don't call him anything but Mr. Dick." 

I promised to obey, and went up-stairs with my message ; thinking, as I 
went, that if Mr. Dick had been working at his Memorial long, at the 
same rate as I had seen him working at it, through the open door, when 
I came down, he was probably getting on very well indeed. I found him 
still driving at it with a long pen, and his head almost laid upon the 
paper. He was so intent upon it, that I had ample leisure to observe the 
large paper kite in a corner, the confusion of bundles of manuscript, the 
number of pens, and, above all, the quantity of ink (which he seemed to have 
in, in half-gallon jars by the dozen), before he observed my being present. 

" Ha ! Phoebus ! " said Mr. Dick, laying down his pen. " How does 
the world go ! I '11 tell you what," he added, in a lower tone, " I 
shouldn't wish it to be mentioned, but it 's a — " here he beckoned to 
me, and put his lips close to my ear — " it 's a mad world. Mad as 
Bedlam, boy ! " said Mr. Dick, taking snuff from a round box on the 
table, and laughing heartily. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 145 

Without presuming to give my opinion on this question, I delivered 
my message. 

" Well," said Mr. Dick, in answer, " my compliments to her, and I — 
I believe I have made a start. I think I have made a start," said Mr. 
Dick, passing his hand among his grey hair, and casting anything but a 
confident look at his manuscript. " You have been to school? " 

"Yes, sir," I answered; " for a short time." 

"Do you recollect the date," said Mr. Dick, looking earnestly at me, 
and taking up his pen to note it down, " when King Charles the First had 
his head cut off?" 

I said I believed it happened in the year sixteen hundred and forty-nine. 

" Well," returned Mr. Dick, scratching his ear with his pen, and looking 
dubiously at me. " So the books say ; but I don't see how that can be. 
Because, if it was so long ago, how could the people about him have made 
that mistake of putting some of the trouble out of his head, after it was 
taken off, into mine?" 

I was very much surprised by the inquiry ; but could give no informa- 
tion on this point. 

" It 's very strange," said Mr. Dick, with a despondent look upon his 
papers, and with his hand among his hair again, " that I never can get that 
quite right. I never can make that perfectly clear. But no matter, no 
matter ! " he said cheerfully, and rousing himself, " there 's time enough ! 
My compliments to Miss Trotwood, I am getting on very well indeed." 

I was going away, when he directed my attention to the kite. 

" What do you think of that for a kite ? " he said. 

I answered that it was a beautiful one. I should think it must have 
been as much as seven feet high. 

" I made it. We '11 go and fly it, you and I," said Mr. Dick. (i Do 
you see this ? " 

He showed me that it was covered with manuscript, very closely and 
laboriously written ; but so plainly, that as I looked along the lines, I 
thought I saw some allusion to King Charles the First's head again, in 
one or two places. 

" There 's plenty of string," said Mr. Dick, " and when it flies high, 
it takes the facts a long way. That's my manner of diffusing 'em. 
I don't know where they may come down. It's according to circum- 
stances, and the wind, and so forth; but I take my chance of that." 

His face was so very mild and pleasant, and had something so reverend 
in it, though it was hale and hearty, that I was not sure but that he was 
having a good-humoured jest with me. So I laughed, and he laughed, 
and we parted the best friends possible. 

" Well, child," said my aunt, when I went down stairs. " And what of 
Mr. Dick, this morning ? " 

I informed her that he sent his compliments, and was getting on very 
well indeed. 

" What do you think of him ? " said my aunt. 

I had some shadowy idea of endeavouring to evade the question, by 
replying that I thought him a very nice gentleman ; but my aunt was not 
to be so put off, for she laid her work down in her lap, and said, folding 
her hands upon it : 

L 



146 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Come ! Your sister Betsey Trotwood would have told me what she 
thought of any one, directly. Be as like your sister as you can, and 
speak out !" 

" Is he — is Mr. Dick — I ask because I don't know, aunt — is he at all out 
of his mind, then ? " I stammered ; for I felt I was on dangerous ground. 

"Not a morsel," said my aunt. 

" Oh, indeed ! " T observed faintly. 

" If there is anything in the world," said my aunt, with great decision 
and force of manner, " that Mr. Dick is not, it 's that." 

I had nothing better to offer, than another timid " Oh, indeed ! " 

" He has been called mad," said my aunt. " I have a selfish pleasure 
in saying he has been called mad, or I should not have had the benefit of 
his society and advice for these last ten years and upwards — in fact, ever 
since your sister, Betsey Trotwood, disappointed me." 

" So long as that ? " I said. 

"And nice people they were, who had the audacity to call him mad," 
pursued my aunt. " Mr. Dick is a sort of distant connexion of mine — it 
doesn't matter how ; I needn't enter into that. If it hadn't been for 
me, his own brother would have shut him up for life. That 's all." 

I am afraid it was hypocritical in me, but seeing that my aunt felt 
strongly on the subject, I tried to look as if I felt strongly too. 

" A proud fool ! " said my aunt. "Because his brother was a little 
eccentric — though he is not half so eccentric as a good many people — he 
didn't like to have him visible about his house, and sent him away to 
some private asylum-place ; though he had been left to his particular care 
by their deceased father, who thought him almost a natural. And a wise 
man he must have been to think so ! Mad himself, no doubt." 

Again, as my aunt looked quite convinced, I endeavoured to look quite 
convinced also. 

" So I stepped in," said my aunt, " and made him an offer. I said, 
Your brother 's sane — a great deal more sane than you are, or ever will 
be, it is to be hoped. Let him have his little income, and come and 
live with me. I am not afraid of him, i" am not proud, I am ready to 
take care of him, and shall not ill-treat him as some people (besides the 
asylum folks) have done. After a good deal of squabbling," said my 
aunt, "I got him; and he has been here ever since. He is the most 
friendly and amenable creature in existence ; and as for advice ! — But 
nobody knows what that man 's mind is, except myself." 

My aunt smoothed her dress and shook her head, as if she smoothed 
defiance of the whole world out of the one, and shook it out of the other. 

" He had a favorite sister," said my aunt, " a good creature, and very 
kind to him. But she did what they all do — took a husband. And he 
did what they all do — made her wretched. It had such an effect upon the 
mind of Mr. Dick (that 's not madness I hope !) that, combined with his 
fear of his brother, and his sense of his unkindness, it threw him into 
a fever. That was before he came to me, but the recollection of it is oppress- 
ive to him even now. Did he say anything to you about King Charles 
the First, child?" 
"Yes, aunt." 

" Ah ! " said my aunt, rubbing her nose as if she were a little vexed. 
" That 's his allegorical way of expressing it. He connects his illness 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 147 

with great disturbance and agitation, naturally, and that's the figure, 
or the simile, or whatever it 's called, which he chooses to use. And why 
shouldn't he, if he thinks proper ! " 

I said : " Certainly, aunt." 

" It 's not a business-like way of speaking," said my aunt, " nor a 
worldly way. I am aware of that ; and that 's the reason why I insist 
upon it, that there shan't be a word about it in his Memorial." 

" Is it a Memorial about his own history that he is writing, aunt ? " 

"Yes, child," said my aunt, rubbing her nose again. "He is memo- 
rialising the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord Somebody or other — one of 
those people, at all events, who are paid to he memorialised — about his 
affairs. I suppose it will go in, one of these days. He hasn't been able 
to draw it up yet, without introducing that mode of expressing himself; 
but it don't signify ; it keeps him employed." 

In fact, I found out afterwards that Mr. Dick had been for upwards of 
ten years endeavouring to keep King Charles the Eirst out of the Memorial; 
but he had been constantly getting into it, and was there now. 

" I say again," said my aunt, " nobody knows what that man's mind is 
except myself ; and he 's the most amenable and friendly creature in exist- 
ence. If he likes to fly a kite sometimes, what of that ! Franklin used to 
fly a kite. He was a Quaker, or something of that sort, if I am not mis- 
taken. And a Quaker flying a kite is a much more ridiculous object than 
anybody else." 

If I could have supposed that my aunt had recounted these particulars 
for my especial behoof, and as a piece of confidence in me, I should have 
felt very much distinguished, and should have augured favourably from 
such a mark of her good opinion. But I could hardly help observing 
that she had launched into them, chiefly because the question was raised 
in her own mind, and with very little reference to me, though she had 
addressed herself to me in the absence of anybody else. 

At the same time, I must say that the generosity of her championship 
of poor harmless Mr. Dick, not only inspired my young breast with some 
selfish hope for myself, but warmed it unselfishly towards her. I believe 
that I began to know that there was something about my aunt, notwith- 
standing her many eccentricities and odd humours, to be honored and 
trusted in. Though she was just as sharp that day, as on the day before, 
and was in and out about the donkeys just as often, and was thrown into 
a tremendous state of indignation, when a young man, going by, ogled 
Janet at a window (which was one of the gravest misdemeanors that 
could be committed against my aunt's dignity), she seemed to me to 
command more of my respect, if not less of my fear. 

The anxiety I underwent, in the interval which necessarily elapsed 
before a reply could be received to her letter to Mr. Murdstone, was 
extreme ; but I made an endeavour to suppress it, and to be as agreeable 
as I could in a quiet way, both to my aunt and Mr. Dick. The latter and 
I would have gone out to fly the great kite ; but that I had still no other 
clothes than the anything but ornamental garments with which I had been 
decorated on the first day, and which confined me to the house, except for 
an hour after dark, when my aunt, for my health's sake, paraded me up 
and down on the cliff outside, before going to bed. At length the reply 
from Mr. Murdstone came, and my aunt informed me, to my infinite 

L 2 



148 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

terror, that he was coming to speak to her himself on the next day. On 
the next day, still bundled up in my curious habiliments, I sat counting 
the time, flushed and heated by the conflict of sinking hopes and rising 
fears within me ; and waiting to be startled by the sight of the gloomy 
face, whose non-arrival startled me every minute. 

My aunt was a little more imperious and stern than usual, but I 
observed no other token of her preparing herself to receive the visitor so 
much dreaded by me. She sat at work in the window, and I sat by, with 
my thoughts running astray on all possible and impossible results of 
Mr. Murdstone's visit, until pretty late in the afternoon. Oar dinner had 
been indefinitely postponed ; but it was growing so late, that my aunt had 
ordered it to be got ready, when she gave a sudden alarm of donkeys, and 
to my consternation and amazement, I beheld Miss Murdstone, on a side- 
saddle, ride deliberately over the sacred piece of green, and stop in front of 
the house, looking about her. 

"Go along with you ! " cried my aunt, shaking her head and her fist at 
the window. " You have no business there. How dare you trespass ? 
Go along ! Oh, you bold-faced thing ! " 

My aunt was so exasperated by the coolness with which Miss Murd- 
stone looked about her, that I really believe she was motionless, and 
unable for the moment to dart out according to custom. I seized the 
opportunity to inform her who it was ; and that the gentleman now com- 
ing near the offender (for the way up was very steep, and he had dropped 
behind), was Mr. Murdstone himself. 

" I don't care who it is ! " cried my aunt, still shaking her head, and 
gesticulating anything but welcome from the bow-window. " I won't be 
trespassed upon. I won't allow it. Go away ! Janet, turn him round. 
Lead him off ! " and I saw, from behind my aunt, a sort of hurried battle- 
piece, in which the donkey stood resisting everybody, with all Ms four legs 
planted different ways, while Janet tried to pull him round by the 
bridle, Mr. Murdstone tried to lead him on, Miss Murdstone struck at 
Janet with a parasol, and several boys, who had come to see the engage- 
ment, shouted vigorously. But my aunt, suddenly descrying among them 
the young malefactor who was the donkey's guardian, and who was one 
of the most inveterate offenders against her, though hardly in his teens, 
rushed out to the scene of action, pounced upon him, captured him, 
dragged him, with his jacket over his head, and his heels grinding the 
ground, into the garden, and, calling upon Janet to fetch the constables 
and justices that he might be taken, tried, and executed on the spot, held 
him at bay there. This part of the business, however, did not last long ; for 
the young rascal, being expert at a variety of feints and dodges, of which 
my aunt had no conception, soon went whooping away, leaving some deep 
impressions of his nailed boots in the flower-beds, and taking his donkey 
in triumph with him. 

Miss Murdstone, during the latter portion of the contest, had dismounted, 
and was now waiting with her brother at the bottom of the steps, until 
my aunt should be at leisure to receive them. My aunt, a little ruffled 
by the combat, marched past them into the house, with great dignity, and 
took no notice of their presence, until they were announced by Janet. 

" Shall I go away, aunt ? " I asked, trembling. 

" No, sir," said my aunt. " Certainly not ! " With which she pushed 



:■. 




y/^ey /m 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 149 

me into a comer near her, and fenced me in with a chair, as if it were a 
prison or a bar of justice. This position I continued to occupy during 
the whole interview, and from it I now saw Mr. and Miss Murdstone 
enter the room. 

" Oh ! " said my aunt, " I was not aware at first to whom I had the 
pleasure of objecting. But I don't allow anybody to ride over that turf. I 
make no exceptions. I don't allow anybody to do it." 

" Your regulation is rather awkward to strangers," said Miss Murdstone. 

" Is it ! " said my aunt. 

Mi*. Murdstone seemed afraid of a renewal of hostilities, and interposing 
began : 

" Miss Trot wood ! " 

" I beg your pardon," observed my aunt with a keen look. " You are the 
Mr. Murdstone who married the widow of my late nephew, David Copper- 
field, of Blunderstone Eookery ? — Though why Rookery, I don't know ! " 

" I am," said Mr. Murdstone. 

"You'll excuse my saying, sir," returned my aunt, "that I think it 
would have been a much better and happier thing if you had left that 
poor child alone." 

" I so far agree with what Miss Trotwood has remarked," observed 
Miss Murdstone, bridling, " that I consider our lamented Clara to have 
been, in all essential respects, a mere child." 

"It is a comfort to you and me, ma'am," said my aunt, "who are 
getting on in life, and are not likely to be made unhappy by our personal 
attractions, that nobody can say the same of us." 

" No doubt ! " returned Miss Murdstone, though, I thought, not with 
a very ready or gracious assent. " And it certainly might have been, as 
you say, a better and happier thing for my brother if he had never entered 
into such a marriage. I have always been of that opinion." 

" I have no doubt you have," said my aunt. " Janet," ringing the bell, 
" my compliments to Mr. Dick, and beg him to come down." 

Until he came, my aunt sat perfectly upright and stiff, frowning at the 
wall. When he came, my aunt performed the ceremony of introduction. 

" Mr. Dick. An old and intimate friend. On whose judgment," said 
my aunt, with emphasis, as an admonition to Mr. Dick, who was biting 
his forefinger and looking rather foolish, "I rely." 

Mr. Dick took his finger out of his mouth, on this hint, and stood 
among the group, with a grave and attentive expression of face. My aunt 
inclined her head to Mr. Murdstone, who went on : 

" Miss Trotwood : on the receipt of your letter, I considered it an act 
of greater justice to myself, and perhaps of more respect to you — " 

"Thank you," said my aunt, still eyeing him keenly. "You needn't 
mind me." 

" To answer it in person, however inconvenient the journey," pursued 
Mr. Murdstone, "rather than by letter. This unhappy boy who has run 
away from his friends and his occupation — " 

" And whose appearance," interposed his sister, directing general atten- 
tion to me in my indefinable costume, "is perfectly scandalous and 
disgraceful." 

" Jane Murdstone," said her brother, " have the goodness not to 
interrupt me. This unhappy boy, Miss Trotwood, has been the occasion 



150 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

of much domestic trouble and uneasiness ; both during the lifetime of my 
late dear wife, and since. He has a sullen, rebellious spirit ; a violent 
temper ; and an untoward, intractable disposition. Eoth my sister and 
myself have endeavoured to correct his vices, but ineffectually. And I have 
felt — we both have felt, I may say ; my sister being fully in my confi- 
dence — that it is right you should receive this grave and dispassionate 
assurance from our lips." 

" It can hardly be necessary for me to confirm anything stated by my 
brother," said Miss Murdstone; "but I beg to observe, that, of all the 
boys in the world, I believe this is the worst boy." 

" Strong !" said my aunt, shortly. 

" But not at all too strong for the facts," returned Miss Murdstone. 

" Ha !" said my aunt. " Well, sir?" 

" I have my own opinions," resumed Mr. Murdstone, whose face 
darkened more and more, the more he and my aunt observed each other, 
which they did very narrowly, " as to the best mode of bringing him up ; 
they are founded, in part, on my knowledge of him, and in part on my 
knowledge of my own means and resources. I am responsible for them 
to myself, I act upon them, and I say no more about them. It is enough 
that I place this boy under the eye of a friend of my own, in a respect- 
able business ; that it does not please him ; that he runs away from it ; 
makes himself a common vagabond about the country ; and comes here, 
in rags, to appeal to you, Miss Trotwood. I wish to set before you, 
honorably, the exact consequences — so far as they are within my know- 
ledge — of your abetting him in this appeal." 

" But about the respectable business first," said my aunt. " If he had 
been your own boy, you would have put him to it, just the same, I suppose ?" 

" If he had been my brother's own boy," returned Miss Murdstone, 
striking in, " his character, I trust, would have been altogether different." 

" Or if the poor child, his mother, had been alive, he would still have 
gone into the respectable business, would he?" said my aunt. 

" I believe," said Mi*. Murdstone, with an inclination of his head, 
" that Clara would have disputed nothing, which myself and my sister 
Jane Murdstone were agreed was for the best." 

Miss Murdstone confirmed this, with an audible murmur. 

" Humph ! " said my aunt. " Unfortunate baby !" 

Mr. Dick, who had been rattling his money all this time, was rattling 
it so loudly now, that my aunt felt it necessary to check him with a look, 
before saying : 

" The poor child 's annuity died with her ? " 

" Died with her," replied Mr. Murdstone. 

"And there was no settlement of the little property — the house and garden 
— the what 's-its-name Eookery without any rooks in it — upon her boy ? " 

" It had been left to her, unconditionally, by her first husband," 
Mr. Murdstone began, when my aunt caught him up with the greatest 
irascibility and impatience. 

" Grood Lord, man, there 's no occasion to say that. Left to her uncon- 
ditionally ! I think I see David Copperfield looking forward to any con- 
dition of any sort or kind, though it stared him point-blank in the face ! 
Of course it was left to her unconditionally. But when she married 
again — when she took that most disastrous step of marrying you, in 



OF DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 151 

short," said my aunt, " to be plain — did no one put in a word for the boy 
at that time?" 

" My late wife loved her second husband, madam," said Mr. Murdstone, 
" and trusted implicitly in him." 

" Your late wife, sir, was a most unworldly, most unhappy, most unfor- 
tunate baby," returned my aunt, shaking her head at him. " That 's 
what she was. And now, what have you got to say next ? " 

" Merely this, Miss Trotwood," he returned. " I am here to take 
David back — to take him back unconditionally, to dispose of him as I 
think proper, and to deal with him as I think right. I am not here to 
make any promise, or give any pledge to anybody. You may possibly 
have some idea, Miss Trotwood, of abetting him in his running away, and 
in his complaints to you. Your manner, which I must say does not seem 
intended to propitiate, induces me to think it possible. Now I must 
caution you that if you abet him once, you abet him for good and all ; if 
you step in between him and me, now, you must step in, Miss Trotwood, 
for ever. I cannot trifle, or be trifled with. I am here, for the first and 
last time, to take him away. Is he ready to go ? If he is not — and you 
tell me he is not ; on any pretence ; it is indifferent to me what — my 
doors are shut against him henceforth, and yours, I take it for granted, are 
open to him." 

To this address, my aunt had listened with the closest attention, sitting 
perfectly upright, with her hands folded on one knee, and looking grimly 
on the speaker. "When he had finished, she turned her eyes so as to com- 
mand Miss Murdstone, without otherwise disturbing her attitude, and said : 

" Well, ma'am, have you got anything to remark ? " 

"Indeed, Miss Trotwood," said Miss Murdstone, "all that I could 
say has been so well said by my brother, and all that I know to be the 
fact has been so plainly stated by him, that I have nothing to add except 
my thanks for your politeness. For your very great politeness, I am 
sure," said Miss Murdstone ; with an irony which no more affected my 
aunt, than it discomposed the cannon I had slept by at Chatham. 

" And what does the boy say ? " said my aunt. " Are you ready to go, 
David?" 

I answered no, and entreated her not to let me go. I said that neither 
Mr. nor Miss Murdstone had ever liked me, or had ever been kind to me. 
That they had made my mama, who always loved me dearly, unhappy about 
me, and that I knew it well, and that Peggotty knew it. I said that I 
had been more miserable than I thought anybody could believe, who only 
knew how young I was. And I begged and prayed my aunt — I forget in 
what terms now, but I remember that they affected me very much then — 
to befriend and protect me, for my father's sake. 

" Mr. Dick," said my aunt, " what shall I do with this child ? " 

Mr. Dick considered, hesitated, brightened, and rejoined, " Have him 
measured for a suit of clothes directly." 

" Mr. Dick," said my aunt, triumphantly, " give me your hand, for 
your common sense is invaluable." Having shaken it with great cordiality, 
she pulled me towards her, and said to Mr. Murdstone : 

" You can go when you like ; I '11 take my chance with the boy. If 
he 's all you say he is, at least I can do as much for him then, as you have 
done. But I don't believe a word of it." 



152 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Miss Trotwood," rejoined Mr. Murdstone, shrugging Ins shoulders, 
as he rose, "if you were a gentleman " 

" Bah ! stuff and nonsense ! " said my aunt. " Don't talk to me ! " 

" How exquisitely polite ! " exclaimed Miss Murdstone, rising. " Over- 
powering, really ! " 

■ f Do you think I don't know," said my aunt, turning a deaf ear to the 
sister, and continuing to address the brother, and to shake her head at 
him with infinite expression, " what kind of life you must have led that 
poor, unhappy, misdirected baby ? Do you think I don't know what a 
woeful day it was for the soft little creature, when you first came in her 
way — smirking and making great eyes at her, I '11 be bound, as if you 
couldn't say boh ! to a goose ! " 

" I never heard anything so elegant ! " said Miss Murdstone. 

" Do you think I can't understand you as well as if I had seen you," 
pursued my aunt, " now that I do see and hear you — which, I tell you 
candidly, is anything but a pleasure to me ? Oh yes, bless us ! who so 
smooth and silky as Mi*. Murdstone at first ! The poor, benighted inno- 
cent had never seen such a man. He was made of sweetness. He wor- 
shipped her. He doted on her boy — tenderly doted on him ! He was 
to be another father to him, and they were all to live together in a garden 
of roses, weren't they ? Ugh ! Get along with you, do ! " said my aunt. 

" I never heard anything like this person in my life ! " exclaimed 
Miss Murdstone. 

" And when you had made sure of the poor little fool," said my aunt 
— " God forgive me that I should call her so, and she gone where 
you won't go in a hurry — because you had not done wrong enough to her 
and hers, you must begin to train her, must you ? begin to break her, like 
a poor caged bird, and wear her deluded life away, in teaching her to 
sing your notes ? " 

" This is either insanity or intoxication," said Miss Murdstone, in a 
perfect agony at not being able to turn the current of my aunt's address 
towards herself; " and my suspicion is, that it 's intoxication." 

Miss Betsey, without taking the least notice of the interruption, con- 
tinued to address herself to Mr. Murdstone as if there had been no 
such thing. 

" Mr. Murdstone," she said, shaking her finger at him, " you were a 
tyrant to the simple baby, and you broke her heart. She was a loving- 
baby — I know that; I knew it, years before you ever saw her — and 
through the best part of her weakness, you gave her the wounds she died 
of. There is the truth for your comfort, however you like it. And you 
and your instruments may make the most of it." 

" Allow me to inquire, Miss Trotwood," interposed Miss Murdstone, 
" whom you are pleased to call, in a choice of words in which I am not 
experienced, my brother's instruments ? " 

Still stone-deaf to the voice, and utterly unmoved by it, Miss Betsey 
pursued her discourse. 

" It was clear enough, as I have told you, years before you ever saw 
her — and why, in the mysterious dispensations of Providence, you ever 
did see her, is more than humanity can comprehend — it was clear enough 
that the poor soft little thing would marry somebody, at some time or 
other ; but I did hope it wouldn't have been as bad as it has turned out. 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 153 

Thrfwas the time, Mr. Murdstone, when she gave birth to her boy here," 
said my aunt ; "to the poor child you sometimes tormented her through 
afterwards, which is a disagreeable remembrance, and makes the sight of 
him odious now. Aye, aye ! you needn't wince ! " said my aunt, " I know 
it 's true without that." 

He had stood by the door, all this while, observant of her with a smile 
upon his face, though his black eyebrows were heavily contracted. I 
remarked now, that, though the smile was on his face still, his colour 
had gone in a moment, and he seemed to breathe as if he had been run- 
ning. 

" Good day, sir ! " said my aunt, " and good bye ! Good day to you 
too, ma'am," said my aunt, turning suddenly upon his sister. " Let 
me see you ride a donkey over my green again, and as sure as you 
have a head upon your shoulders, I '11 knock your bonnet off, and tread 
upon it ! " 

It would require a painter, and no common painter too, to depict my 
aunt's face as she delivered herself of this very unexpected sentiment, and 
Miss Murdstone's face as she heard it. But the manner of the speech, 
no less than the matter, was so fiery, that Miss Murdstone, without a 
word in answer, discreetly put her arm through her brother's, and walked 
haughtily out of the cottage ; my aunt, remaining in the window looking 
after them ; prepared, I have no doubt, in case of the donkey's reappear- 
ance, to carry her threat into instant execution. 

No attempt at defiance being made, however, her face gradually relaxed, 
and became so pleasant, that I was emboldened to kiss and thank her ; 
which I did with great heartiness, and with both my arms clasped round 
her neck. I then shook hands with Mr. Dick, who shook hands with me 
a great many times, and hailed this happy close of the proceedings with 
repeated bursts of laughter. 

"You'll consider yourself guardian, jointly with me, of this child, 
Mr. Dick," said my aunt. 

" I shall be delighted," said Mr. Dick, "to be the guardian of David's 
son." 

"Very good," returned my aunt, "that's settled. I have been 
thinking, do you know, Mr. Dick, that I might call him Trotwood ? " 

" Certainly, certainly. Call him Trotwood, certainly," said Mr. Dick. 
" David's son's Trotwood." 

" Trotwood Copperfield, you mean," returned my aunt. 

" Yes, to be sure. Yes. 'Trotwood Copperfield," said Mr. Dick, a little 
abashed. 

My aunt took so kindly to the notion, that some ready-made clothes, 
which were purchased for me that afternoon, were marked " Trotwood 
Copperfield," in her own handwriting, and in indelible marking-ink, before 
I put them on ; and it was settled that all the other clothes which were 
ordered to be made for me (a complete outfit was bespoke that afternoon) 
should be marked in the same way. 

Thus I began my new life, in a new name, and with everything new 
about me. Now that the state of doubt was over, I felt, for many days, 
like one in a dream. I never thought that I had a curious couple of 
guardians, in my aunt and Mr. Dick. I never thought of anything about 
myself, distinctly. The two things clearest in my mind were, that a 



154 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

remoteness had come upon the old Blunderstone life — which seemefi to 
lie in the haze of an immeasurable distance ; and that a curtain had for 
ever fallen on my life at Murdstone and Grinby's. No one has ever 
raised that curtain since. I have lifted it for a moment, even in this 
narrative, with a reluctant hand, and dropped it gladly. The remem- 
brance of that life is fraught with so much pain to me, with so much 
mental suffering and want of hope, that I have never had the courage 
even to examine how long I was doomed to lead it. Whether it lasted 
for a year, or more, or less, I do not know. I only know that it was, 
and ceased to be ; and that I have written, and there I leave it. 



CHAPTER XY. 

I MAKE ANOTHER BEGINNING. 



Mr. Dick and I soon became the best of friends, and very often, when 
his day's work was done, went out together to fly the great kite. Every 
day of his life he had a long sitting at the Memorial, which never made 
the least progress, however hard he labored, for King Charles the First 
always strayed into it, sooner or later, and then it was thrown aside, and 
another one begun. The patience and hope with which he bore these per- 
petual disappointments, the mild perception he had that there was some- 
thing wrong about King Charles the First, the feeble efforts he made to 
keep him out, and the certainty with which he came in, and tumbled the 
Memorial out of all shape, made a deep impression on me. What Mr. 
Dick supposed would come of the Memorial, if it were completed ; where 
he thought it was to go, or what he thought it was to do ; he knew no 
more than anybody else, I believe. Nor was it at all necessary that he 
should trouble himself with such questions, for if anything were certain 
under the sun, it was certain that the Memorial never would be finished. 

It was quite an affecting sight, I used to think, to see him with 
the kite when it was up a great height in the air. What he had told 
me, in his room, about his belief in its disseminating the statements 
pasted on it, which were nothing but old leaves of abortive Memorials, 
might have been a fancy with him sometimes ; but not when he was out, 
looking up at the kite in the sky, and feeling it pull and tug at his 
hand. He never looked so serene as he did then. I used to fancy, as I 
sat by him of an evening, on a green slope, and saw him watch the 
kite high in the quiet air, that it lifted his mind out of its confusion, and 
bore it (such was my boyish thought) into the skies. As he wound the 
string in, and it came lower and lower down out of the beautiful light, 
until it fluttered to the ground, and lay there like a dead thing, he seemed 
to wake gradually out of a dream ; and I remember to have seen him take 
it up, and look about him in a lost way, as if they had both come down 
together, so that I pitied him with all my heart. 

While I advanced in friendship and intimacy with Mr. Dick, I did not 
go backward in the favor of his staunch friend, my aunt. She took so 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 155 

kindly to me, that, in the course of a few weeks, she shortened my adopted 
name of Trotwood into Trot ; and even encouraged me to hope that if I 
went on as I had begun, I might take equal rank in her affections with 
my sister Betsey Trotwood. 

" Trot," said my aunt one evening, when the backgammon-board was 
placed as usual for herself and Mr. Dick, " we must not forget your 
education." 

This was my only subject of anxiety, and I felt quite delighted by her 
referring to it. 

" Should you like to go to school at Canterbury ? " said my aunt. 

I replied that I should like it very much, as it was so near her. 

" Good," said my aunt. " Should you like to go to-morrow ? " 

Being already no stranger to the general rapidity of my aunt's evolu* 
tions, I was not surprised by the suddenness of the proposal, and said : 
" Yes." 

" Good," said my aunt again. " Janet, hire the grey pony and chaise 
to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, and pack up Master Trotwood's clothes 
to-night." 

I was greatly elated by these orders ; but my heart smote me for my 
selfishness, when I witnessed their effect on Mr. Dick, who was so low- 
spirited at the prospect of our separation, and played so ill in consequence, 
that my aunt, after giving him several admonitory raps on the knuckles 
with her dice-box, shut up the board, and declined to play with him any 
more. But, on hearing from my aunt that I should sometimes come over 
on a Saturday, and that he could sometimes come and see me on a Wed- 
nesday, he revived ; and vowed to make another kite for those occasions, 
of proportions greatly surpassing the present one. In the morning he 
was downhearted again, and would have sustained himself by giving me 
all the money he had in his possession, gold and silver too, if my aunt had 
not interposed, and limited the gift to five shillings, which, at his earnest 
petition, were afterwards increased to ten. We parted at the garden-gate 
in a most affectionate manner, and Mr. Dick did not go into the house 
until my aunt had driven me out of sight of it. 

My aunt, who was perfectly indifferent to public opinion, drove the grey 
pony through Dover in a masterly manner ; sitting high and stiff like a 
state coachman, keeping a steady eye upon him wherever he went, and 
making a point of not letting him have his own way in any respect. 
When we came into the country road, she permitted him to relax a little, 
however ; and looking at me down in a valley of cushion by her side, 
asked me whether I was happy. 

" Very happy indeed, thank you, aunt," I said. 

She was much gratified; and both her hands being occupied, patted 
me on the head with her whip. 

" Is it a large school, aunt?" I asked. 

" Why, I don't know," said my aunt. " We are going to Mr. Wick- 
field's first." 

" Does he keep a school?" I asked. 

" No, Trot," said my aunt. " He keeps an office." 

I asked for no more information about Mr. Wickfield, as she offered 
none, and we conversed on other subjects until we came to Canterbury, 
where, as it was market-day, my aunt had a great opportunity of insinu- 



156 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

ating the grey pony among carts, baskets, vegetables, and huckster's 
goods. The hair-breadth turns and twists we made, drew down upon 
us a variety of speeches from the people standing about, which were not 
always complimentary ; but my aunt drove on with perfect indifference, 
and I dare say would have taken her own way with as much coolness 
through an enemy's country. 

At length we stopped before a very old house bulging out over the road ; 
a house with long low lattice-windows bulging out still farther, and beams 
with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, so that I fancied the whole 
house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow 
pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness. The old- 
fashioned brass knocker on the low arched door, ornamented with carved 
garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled like a star ; the two stone steps 
descending to the door were as white as if they had been covered with 
fair linen ; and all the angles and corners, and carvings and mouldings, 
and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little windows, though as old 
as the hills, were as pure as any snow that ever fell upon the hills. 

When the pony-chaise stopped at the door, and my eyes were intent 
upon the house, I saw a cadaverous face appear at a small window on the 
ground floor (in a little round tower that formed one side of the 
house), and quickly disappear. The low arched door then opened, and 
the face came out. It was quite as cadaverous as it had looked in 
the window, though in the grain of it there was that tinge of red which 
is sometimes to be observed in the skins of red-haired people. It belonged 
to a red-haired person — a youth of fifteen, as I take it now, but looking 
much older — whose hair was cropped as close as the closest stubble ; who 
had hardly any eyebrows, and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red-brown; 
so unsheltered and unshaded, that I remember wondering how he went to 
sleep. He was high-shouldered and bony ; dressed in decent black, with 
a white wisp of a neckcloth ; buttoned up to the throat ; and had a long, 
lank, skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention, as he stood 
at the pony's head, rubbing his chin with it, and looking up at us in the 
chaise. 

" Is Mr. Wickfield at home, Uriah Heep ? " said my aunt. 

" Mr. Wickfield 's at home, ma'am," said Uriah Heep, " if you '11 
please to walk in there" — pointing with his long hand to the room he meant. 

We got out ; and leaving him to hold the pony, went into a long low 
parlor looking towards the street, from the window of which I caught a 
glimpse, as I went in, of Uriah Heep breathing into the pony's nostrils, 
and immediately covering them with his hand, as if he were putting some 
spell upon him. Opposite to the tall old chimney-piece, were two por- 
traits : one of a gentleman with grey hair (though not by any means an 
old man) and black eyebrows, who was looking over some papers tied 
together with red tape ; the other, of a lady, with a very placid and sweet 
expression of face, who was looking at me. 

I believe I was turning about in search of Uriah's picture, when, 
a door at the farther end of the room opening, a gentleman entered, 
at sight of whom I turned to the first-mentioned portrait again, to make 
quite sure that it had not come out of its frame. But it was stationary ; 
and as the gentleman advanced into the light, I saw that he was some 
years older than when he had had his picture painted. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 157 

" Miss Betsey Trotwood," said the gentleman, " pray walk in. I was 
engaged for the moment, but you'll excuse my being busy. You know 
my motive. I have but one in life." 

Miss Betsey thanked him, and we went into his room, which was fur- 
nished as an office, with books, papers, tin boxes, and so forth. It looked 
into a garden, and had an iron safe let into the wall ; so immediately over 
the mantel-shelf, that I wondered, as I sat down, how the sweeps got 
round it when they swept the chimney. 

" Well, Miss Trotwood," said Mr. Wickfield ; for I soon found that it 
was he, and that he was a lawyer, and steward of the estates of a rich 
gentleman of the county ; " what wind blows you here ? Not an ill 
wind, I hope ? " 

" No," replied my aunt, " I have not come for any law." 

"That's right, ma'am," said Mr. Wickfield. "You had better come 
for anything else." 

His hair was quite white now, though his eyebrows were still black. 
He had a very agreeable face, and, I thought, was handsome. There was 
a certain richness in his complexion, which I had been long accustomed, 
under Peggotty's tuition, to connect with port wine ; and I fancied it was 
in his voice too, and referred his growing corpulency to the same cause. 
He was very cleanly dressed, in a blue coat, striped waistcoat, and nankeen 
trowsers ; and his fine frilled shirt and cambric neckcloth looked unusually 
soft and white, reminding my strolling fancy (I call to mind) of the 
plumage on the breast of a swan. 

" This is my nephew," said my aunt. 

" Wasn't aware you had one, Miss Trotwood," said Mr. Wickfield. 

" My grand-nephew, that is to say," observed my aunt. 

" Wasn't aware you had a grand-nephew, I give you my word," said 
Mr. Wickfield. 

"I have adopted him," said my aunt, with a wave of her hand, 
importing that his knowledge and his ignorance were all one to her, " and. 
I have brought him here, to put him to a school where he may be 
thoroughly well taught, and well treated. Now tell me where that school 
is, and what it is, and all about it." 

"Before I can advise you properly," said Mr. Wickfield, — "the old 
question, you know. What 's your motive in this ? " 

" Deuce take the man ! " exclaimed my aunt. " Always fishing for 
motives, when they 're on the surface ! Why, to make the child happy 
and useful." 

" It must be a mixed motive, I think," said Mr. Wickfield, shaking his 
head and smiling incredulously. 

" A mixed fiddlestick ! " returned my aunt. " You claim to have one 
plain motive in all you do yourself. You don't suppose, I hope, that you 
are the only plain dealer in the world ? " 

"Ay, but I have only one motive in life, Miss Trotwood," he rejoined, 
smiling. " Other people have dozens, scores, hundreds. I have only one. 
There 's the difference. However, that 's beside the question. The best 
school ? Whatever the motive, you want the best ? " 

My aunt nodded assent. 

" At the best we have," said Mr. Wickfield, considering, " your nephew 
couldn't board just now." 



158 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" But he could board somewhere else, I suppose? " suggested my aunt. 

Mr. Wickfield thought I could. After a little discussion, he proposed 
to take my aunt to the school, that she might see it and judge for herself; 
also, to take her, with the same object, to two or three houses where he 
thought I could be boarded. My aunt embracing the proposal, we were 
all three going out together, when he stopped and said : 

" Our little friend here might have some motive, perhaps, for objecting 
to the arrangements. I think we had better leave him behind ? " 

My aunt seemed disposed to contest the point ; but to facilitate matters 
I said I would gladly remain behind, jf they pleased ; and returned into 
Mr. Wickfield's office, w T here I sat down again, in the chair I had first 
occupied, to await their return. 

It so happened that this chair was opposite a narrow passage, which 
ended in the little circular room w r here I had seen Uriah Heep's pale face 
looking out of window. Uriah, having taken the pony to a neighbouring 
stable, was at work at a desk in this room, which had a brass frame on the 
top to hang papers upon, and on which the writing he was making a copy 
of was then hanging. Though his face was towards me, I thought, for 
some time, the writing being between us, that he could not see me ; but 
looking that way more attentively, it made me uncomfortable to observe 
that, every now and then, his sleepless eyes would come below the writing, 
like two red suns, and stealthily stare at me for I dare say a whole minute 
at a time, during which his pen went, or pretended to go, as cleverly as 
ever. I made several attempts to get out of their way — such as standing 
on a chair to look at a map on the other side of the room, and poring over 
the columns of a Kentish newspaper — but they always attracted me back 
again ; and whenever I looked towards those two red suns, I was sure to 
find them, either just rising or just setting. 

At length, much to my relief, my aunt and Mr. Wickfield came back, 
after a pretty long absence. They were not so successful as I could" have 
wished ; for though the advantages of the school were undeniable, my aunt 
had not approved of any of the boarding-houses proposed for me. 

" It 's very unfortunate," said my aunt. " I don't know what to do, 
Trot." 

" It does happen unfortunately," said Mr. Wickfield. " But I '11 tell 
you what you can do, Miss Trotwood." 

" What 's that ? " inquired my aunt. 

" Leave your nephew here, for the present. He 's a quiet fellow. He 
won't disturb me at all. It 's a capital house for study. As quiet as a 
monastery, and almost as roomy. Leave him here." 

My aunt evidently liked the offer, though she was delicate of accepting 
it. So did I. 

" Come, Miss Trotwood," said Mr. Wickfield. " This is the way out 
of the difficulty. It 's only a temporary arrangement, you know. If it 
don't act well, or don't quite accord with our mutual convenience, he can 
easily go to the right about. There wall be time to find some better 
place for him in the meanwhile. You had better determine to leave him 
here for the present ! " 

"I am very much obliged to you," said my aunt; "and so is he, I 
see; but — " 

" Come ! I know what you mean," cried Mr. Wickfield. " You shall 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 159 

not be oppressed by the receipt of favors, Miss Trotwood. You may 
pay for him if you like. We won't be hard about terms, but you shall 
pay if you will." 

"On that understanding," said my aunt, "though it doesn't lessen the 
real obligation, I shall be very glad to leave him." 

" Then come and see my little housekeeper," said Mr. Wickfield. 

We accordingly went up a wonderful old staircase ; with a balustrade 
so broad that we might have gone up that, almost as easily ; and into a 
shady old drawing-room, lighted by some three or four of the quaint 
windows I had looked up at from the street : which had old oak seats in 
them, that seemed to have come of the same trees as the shining oak 
floor, and the great beams in the ceiling. It was a prettily furnished 
room, with a piano and some lively furniture in red and green, and some 
flowers. It seemed to be all old nooks and corners ; and in every nook 
and corner there was some queer little table, or cupboard, or bookcase, or 
seat, or something or other, that made me think there was not such 
another good corner in the room ; until I looked at the next one, and found 
it equal to it, if not better. On everything there was the same air of 
retirement and cleanliness that marked the house outside. 

Mr. Wickfield tapped at a door in a corner of the panneled wall, and 
a girl of about my own age came quickly out and kissed him. On her 
face, I saw immediately the placid and sweet expression of the lady whose 
picture had looked at me down-stairs. It seemed to my imagination as 
if the portrait had grown womanly, and the original remained a child. 
Although her face was quite bright and happy, there was a tranquillity 
about it, and about her — a quiet, good, calm spirit — that I never have 
forgotten ; that I never shall forget. 

This was his little housekeeper, his daughter Agnes, Mr. Wickfield 
said. When I heard how he said it, and saw how he held her hand, I 
guessed what the one motive of his life was. 

She had a little basket-trifle hanging at her side, with keys in it ; and 
looked as staid and as discreet a housekeeper as the old house could have. 
She listened to her father as he told her about me, with a pleasant face ; 
and when he had concluded, proposed to my aunt that we should go up- 
stairs and see my room. We all went together ; she before us : and a 
glorious old room it was, with more oak beams, and diamond panes ; and 
the broad balustrade going all the way up to it. 

I cannot call to mind where or when, in my childhood, I had seen a 
stained glass window in a church. Nor do I recollect its subject. But I 
know that when I saw her turn round, in the grave light of the old 
staircase, and wait for us, above, I thought of that window ; and that I 
associated something of its tranquil brightness with Agnes Wickfield 
ever afterwards. 

My aunt was as happy as I was, in the arrangement made for me ; and 
we went down to the drawing-room again, well pleased and gratified. 
As she would not hear of staying to dinner, lest she should by any chance 
fail to arrive at home with the grey pony before dark ; and as I apprehend 
Mr. Wickfield knew her too well, to argue any point with her ; some lunch 
was provided for her there, and Agnes went back to her governess, and 
Mr. Wickfield to his office. So we were left to take leave of one another 
without any restraint. 



160 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

She told me that everything would be arranged for me by Mr. Wick- 
field, and that I should want for nothing, and gave me the kindest words 
and the best advice. 

"Trot," said my aunt in conclusion, "be a credit to yourself, to me, 
and Mr. Dick, and Heaven be with you ! " 

I was greatly overcome, and could only thank her, again and again, 
and send my love to Mr. Dick. 

"Never," said my aunt, "be mean in anything; never be false; never 
be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you." 

I promised, as well as I could, that I would not abuse her kindness or 
forget her admonition. 

" The pony 's at the door," said my aunt, " and I am off ! Stay here." 

With these words she embraced me hastily, and went out of the room, 
shutting the door after her. At first I was startled by so abrupt a 
departure, and almost feared I had displeased her ; but when I looked 
into the street, and saw how dejectedly she got into the chaise, and drove 
away without looking up, I understood her better, and did not do her 
that injustice. 

By five o'clock, which was Mr. Wickfield's dinner hour, I had mustered 
up my spirits again, and was ready for my knife and fork. The cloth was 
only laid for us two ; but Agnes was waiting in the drawing-room before 
dinner, went down with her father, and sat opposite to him at table. I 
doubted whether he could have dined without her. 

We did not stay there, after dinner, but came up-stairs into the draw- 
ing-room again : in one snug corner of which, Agnes set glasses for 
her father, and a decanter of port wine. I thought he would have missed 
its usual flavor, if it had been put there for him by any other hands. 

There he sat, taking his wine, and talcing a good deal of it, for two 
hours ; while Agnes played on the piano, worked, and talked to him and 
me. He was, for the most part, gay and cheerful with us; but sometimes 
his eyes rested on her, and he fell into a brooding state, and was silent. 
She always observed this quickly, as I thought, and always roused him with 
a question or caress. Then he came out of his meditation, and drank 
more wine. 

Agnes made the tea, and presided over it; and the time passed away after 
it, as after dinner, until she went to bed ; when her father took her in his 
arms and kissed her, and, she being gone, ordered candles in his office. 
Then I went to bed too. 

But in the course of the evening I had rambled down to the door, and 
a little way along the street, that I might have another peep at the old 
houses, and the grey Cathedral ; and might think of my coming through 
that old city on my journey, and of my passing the very house I lived in, 
without knowing it. As I came back, I saw Uriah Heep shutting up the 
office ; and feeling friendly towards everybody, went in and spoke to him, 
and at parting, gave him my hand. But oh, what a clammy hand his 
was ! as ghostly to the touch as to the sight ! I rubbed mine afterwards, 
to warm it, and to rub his off. 

It was such an uncomfortable hand, that, when I went to my room, it 
was still cold and wet upon my memory. Leaning out of window, and 
seeing one of the faces on the beam-ends looking at me sideways, I fancied 
it was Uriah Heep got up there somehow, and shut him out in a harry. 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 161 



CHAPTER XVI. 

I AM A NEW BOY IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE. 

Next morning, after breakfast, I entered on school life again. I went, 
accompanied by Mr. Wickfield, to the scene of my future studies — a grave 
building in a court-yard, with a learned air about it that seemed very well 
suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the Cathedral 
towers to walk with a clerkly bearing on the grass-plot — and was intro- 
duced to my new master, Doctor Strong. 

Doctor Strong looked almost as rusty, to my thinking, as the tall iron 
rails and gates outside the house ; and almost as stiff and heavy as the great 
stone urns that flanked them, and were set up, on the top of the red-brick wall, 
at regular distances all round the court, like sublimated skittles, for Time 
to play at. He was in his library (I mean Doctor Strong was), with his 
clothes not particularly well brushed, and his hair not particularly well 
combed ; his knee-smalls unbraced ; his long black gaiters unbuttoned ; and 
his shoes yawning like two caverns on the hearth-rug. Turning upon me 
a lustreless eye, that reminded me of a long-forgotten blind old horse who 
once, used to crop the grass, and tumble over the graves, in Blunderstone 
churchyard, he said he was glad to see me : and then he gave me his 
hand ; which I didn't know what to do with, as it did nothing for itself. 

But, sitting at work, not far off from Doctor Strong, was a very 
pretty young lady — whom he called Annie, and who was his daughter, 
X supposed — who got me out of my difficulty by kneeling down to 
put Doctor Strong's shoes on, and button his gaiters, which she did 
with great cheerfulness and quickness. When she had finished, and 
we were going out to the school-room, I was much surprised to hear Mr. 
Wickfield, in bidding her good morning, address her as " Mrs. Strong ; " 
and I was wondering could she be Doctor Strong's son's wife, or could 
she be Mrs. Doctor Strong, when Doctor Strong himself unconsciously 
enlightened me. 

" By the bye, Wickfield," he said, stopping in a passage with his hand 
on my shoulder ; " you have not found any suitable provision for my wife's 
cousin yet?" 

" No," said Mr. Wickfield. " No. Not yet." 

" I could wish it done as soon as it can be done, Wickfield," said 
Doctor Strong, " for Jack Maldon is needy, and idle ; and of those two bad 
things, worse things sometimes come. What does Doctor Watts say," 
he added, looking at me, and moving his head to the time of his quota- 
tion, " * Satan finds some mischief still, for idle hands to do.' " 

" Egad, doctor," returned Mr. Wickfield, " if Doctor Watts knew man- 
kind, he might have written, with as much truth, * Satan finds some mis- 
chief still, for busy hands to do.' The busy people achieve their full 
share of mischief in the world, you may rely upon it. What have the 
people been about, who have been the busiest in getting money, and in 
getting power, this century or two ? No mischief? " 

M 



162 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Jack Maldon will never be very busy in getting either, I expect," 
said Doctor Strong, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. 

"Perhaps not," said Mr. Wickfield; "and you bring me back to the 
question, with an apology for digressing. No, I have not been able to 
dispose of Mr. Jack Maldon yet. I believe," he said this with some hesita- 
tion, " I penetrate your motive, and it makes the thing more difficult." 

" My motive," '-returned Dr. Strong, " is to make some suitable pro- 
vision for a cousin, and an old playfellow, of Annie's." 

" Yes, I know," said Mr. Wickfield; " at home or abroad." 

" Aye ! " replied the Doctor, apparently wondering why he emphasised 
those words so much. " At home or abroad." 

" Your own expression, you know," said Mr. Wickfield. " Or abroad." 

" Surely," the Doctor answered. " Surely. One or other." 

" One or other? Have you no choice?" asked Mr. "Wickfield. 

" No," returned the Doctor. 

" No?" with astonishment. 

" Not the least." 

" No motive," said Mr.Wickfield, "for meaning abroad, and not at home?" 

" No," returned the Doctor. 

"I am bound to believe you, and of course I do believe you," said 
Mr. Wickfield. " It might have simplified my office very much, if I had 
known it before. But I confess I entertained another impression." 

Doctor Strong regarded him with a puzzled and doubting look, which 
almost immediately subsided into a smile that gave me great encourage- 
ment ; for it was full of amiability and sweetness, and there was a 
simplicity in it, and indeed in his whole manner, when the studious, 
pondering frost upon it was got through, very attractive and hopeful 
to a young scholar like me. Repeating " no," and " not the least," and 
other short assurances to the same purport, Doctor Strong jogged on 
before us, at a queer, uneven pace ; and we followed : Mr. Wickfield 
looking grave, I observed, and shaking his head to himself, without 
knowing that I saw him. 

The school-room was a pretty large hall, on the quietest side of the 
house, confronted by the stately stare of some half-dozen of the great 
urns, and commanding a peep of an old secluded garden belonging to the 
Doctor, where the peaches were ripening on the sunny south wall. There 
were two great aloes, in tubs, on the turf outside the windows; the broad hard 
leaves of which plant (looking as if they were made of painted tin) have 
ever since, by association, been symbolical to me of silence and retirement. 
About five-and-twenty boys were studiously engaged at their books when 
we went in, but they rose to give the Doctor good morning, and remained 
standing when they saw Mr. Wickfield and me. 

" A new boy, young gentlemen," said the Doctor ; " Trotwood 
Copperfield." 

One Adams, who was the head-boy, then stepped out of his place and 
welcomed me. He looked like a young clergyman, in his white cravat, but 
he was very affable and good-humored ; and he showed me my place, and 
presented me to the masters, in a gentlemanly way that would have put 
me at my ease, if anything could. 

It seemed to me so long, however, since I had been among such boys, 
or among any companions of my own age, except Mick Walker and Mealey 



OF DAVID COPPEPJFIELD. i 163 

Potatoes, that I felt as strange as ever I have done in all my life. I was 
so conscious of having passed through scenes of which they could have 
no knowledge, and of having acquired experiences foreign to my age, 
appearance, and condition, as one of them, that I half believed it was an 
imposture to come there as an ordinary little schoolboy. I had become, 
in the Murdstone and Grinby time, however short or long it may have been, 
so unused to the sports and games of boys, that I knew I was awkward 
and inexperienced in the commonest things belonging to them. Whatever 
I had learnt, had so slipped away from me in the sordid cares of my life 
from day to night, that now, when I was examined about what I knew, I 
knew nothing, and was put into the lowest form of the school. But, 
troubled as I was, by my want of boyish skill, and of book-learning too, I 
was made infinitely more uncomfortable by the consideration, that, in what 
I did know, I was much farther removed from my companions than in 
what I did not. My mind ran upon what they would think, if they knew 
of my familiar acquaintance with the King's Bench Prison ? Was there 
anything about me which would reveal my proceedings in connexion with 
the Micawber family — all those pawnings, and sellings, and suppers — L2 
spite of myself ? Suppose some of the boys had seen me coming through 
Canterbury, wayworn and ragged, and should find me out ? What would 
they say, who made so light of money, if they could know how I had 
scraped my halfpence together, for the purchase of my daily saveloy and 
beer, or my slices of pudding ? How would it affect them, who were so 
innocent of London life, and London streets, to discover how knowing I 
was (and was ashamed to be) in some of the meanest phases of both ? 
All this ran in my head so much, on that first day at Doctor Strong's, 
that I felt distrustful of my slightest look and gesture ; shrunk within 
myself whensoever I was approached by one of my new schoolfellows ; and 
hurried off the minute school was over, afraid of committing myself in 
my response to any friendly notice or advance. 

But there was such an influence in Mr. Wickfield's old house, that 
when I knocked at it, with my new school-books under my arm, I began 
to feel my uneasiness softening away. As I went up to my airy old room, 
the grave shadow of the staircase seemed to fall upon my doubts and 
fears, and to make the past more indistinct. I sat there, sturdily conning 
my books, until dinner time (we were out of school for good at three) ; and 
went down, hopeful of becoming a passable sort of boy yet. 

Agnes was in the drawing-room, waiting for her father, who was 
detained by some one in his office. She met me with her pleasant smile, 
and asked me how I liked the school. I told her I should like it very 
much, I hoped ; but I was a little strange to it at first. 

" You have never been to school," I said, "have you? " 

" Oh, yes ! Every day." 

" Ah, but you mean here, at your own home ? " 

" Papa couldn't spare me to go anywhere else," she answered, smiling 
and shaking her head. " His housekeeper must be in his house, you know." 

" He is very fond of you, I am sure," I said. 

She nodded "Yes," and went to the door to listen for his coming up, 
that she might meet him on the stairs. But, as he was not there,, she 
came back again. 

M % 



164+ THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Mama has been dead ever since I was born," she said, in her quiet 
way. " I only know her picture, down stairs. I saw you looking at it 
yesterday. Did you think whose it was ? " 

I told her yes, because it was so like herself. 

" Papa says so, too," said Agnes, pleased. " Hark ! That's papa now ! " 

Her bright calm face lighted up with pleasure as she went to meet him, 
and as they came in, hand in hand. He greeted me cordially ; and told 
me I should certainly be happy under Doctor Strong, who was one of the 
gentlest of men. 

" There may be some, perhaps — I don't know that there are — who 
abuse his kindness," said Mr. Wickfield. " Never be one of those, 
Trotwood, in anything. He is the least suspicious of mankind ; and 
whether that 's a merit, or whether it 's a blemish, it deserves consideration 
in all dealings with the Doctor, great or small." 

He spoke, I thought, as if he were weary, or dissatisfied with something ; 
but I did not pursue the question in my mind, for dinner was just then 
announced, and we went down and took the same seats as before. 

We had scarcely done so, when Uriah Heep put in Ins red head and his 
lank hand at the door, and said : 

" Here 's Mr. Maldon begs the favor of a word, sir." 

" I am but this moment quit of Mr. Maldon," said his master. 

" Yes, sir," returned Uriah ; " but Mr. Maldon has come back, and he 
begs the favor of a word." 

As he held the door open with his hand, Uriah looked at me, and looked at 
Agnes, and looked at the dishes, and looked at the plates, and looked at every 
object in the room, I thought, — yet seemed to look at nothing; he made such 
an appearance all the while of keeping his red eyes dutifully on his master. 

" I beg your pardon. It 's only to say, on reflection," observed a voice 
behind Uriah, as Uriah's head was pushed away, and the speaker's sub- 
stituted — " pray excuse me for this intrusion — that as it seems I have no 
choice in the matter, the sooner I go abroad, the better. My cousin 
Annie did say, when we talked of it, that she liked to have her friends 
within reach rather than to have them banished, and the old Doctor — " 

" Doctor Strong, was that? " Mr. Wickfield interposed, gravely. 

"Doctor Strong of course," returned the other; "I call him the old 
Doctor — it 's all the same, you know." 

" I dont know," returned Mr. Wickfield. 

" Well, Doctor Strong," said the other — " Doctor Strong was of the 
same mind, I believed. But as it appears from the course you take with 
me that he has changed his mind, why there 's no more to be said, except 
that the sooner I am off, the better. Therefore, I thought I 'd come back 
and say, that the sooner I am off, the better. When a plunge is to be 
made into the water, it 's of no use lingering on the bank." 

" There shall be as little lingering as possible, in your case, Mr. Maldon, 
you may depend upon it," said Mr. Wickfield. 

" Thank'ee," said the other. " Much obliged. I don't want to look 
a gift-horse in the mouth, which is not a gracious thing to do ; otherwise, 
I dare say, my cousin Annie could easily arrange it in her own way. I 
suppose Annie would only have to say to the old Doctor — " 

" Meaning that Mrs. Strong would only have to say to her husband — 
do I follow you ? " said Mr. Wickfield. 



OF DAVID COPPEItFIELD. 165 

11 Quite so," returned the other, " — would only have to say, that she 
wanted such and such a thing to be so and so ; and it would be so and so, 
as a matter of course." 

" And why as a matter of course, Mr. Maldon ? " asked Mr. Wickfield, 
sedately eating his dinner. 

" Why, because Annie 's a charming young girl, and the old Doctor — 
Doctor Strong, I mean — is not quite a charming young boy," said 
Mr. Jack Maldon, laughing. " No offence to anybody, Mr. Wickfield. 
I only mean that I suppose some compensation is fair and reasonable, in 
that sort of marriage." 

" Compensation to the lady, sir ? " asked Mr. Wickfield gravely. 

" To the lady, sir," Mr. Jack Maldon answered, laughing. But 
appearing to remark that Mr. Wickfield went on with his dinner in the 
same sedate, immoveable manner, and that there was no hope of making 
him relax a muscle of his face, he added : 

" However, I have said what I came back to say, and, with another 
apology for this intrusion, I may take myself off. Of course I shall 
observe your directions, in considering the matter as one to be arranged 
between you and me solely, and not to be referred to, up at the Doctor's." 

" Have you dined? " asked Mr. Wickfield, with a motion of his hand 
towards the table. 

" Thank'ee. I am going to dine," said Mr. Maldon, "with my cousin 
Annie. Good bye ! " 

Mr. Wickfield, without rising, looked after him thoughtfully as he went 
out. He was rather a shallow sort of young gentleman, I thought, with 
a handsome face, a rapid utterance, and a confident, bold air. And this 
was the first I ever saw of Mr. Jack Maldon ; whom I had not expected to 
see so soon, when I heard the Doctor speak of him that morning. 

When we had dined, we went up-stairs again, where everything went 
on exactly as on the previous day. Agnes set the glasses and decanters 
in the same corner, and Mr. Wickfield sat down to drink, and drank a 
good deal. Agnes played the piano to him, sat by him, and worked and 
talked, and played some games at dominoes with me. In good time she 
made tea ; and afterwards, when I brought down my books, looked into 
them, and showed me what she knew of them (which was no slight matter, 
though she said it was), and what was the best way to learn and under- 
stand them. I see her, with her modest, orderly, placid manner, and I hear 
her beautiful calm voice, as I write these words. The influence for all good, 
which she came to exercise over me at a later time, begins already to 
descend upon my breast. I love little Em'ly, and I don't love Agnes — no, 
not at all in that way — but I feel that there are goodness, peace, and 
truth, wherever Agnes is ; and that the soft light of the colored window in 
the church, seen long ago, falls on her always, and on me when I am near 
her, and on every thing around. 

The time having come for her withdrawal for the night, and she having 
left us, I gave Mr. Wickfield my hand, preparatory to going away myself. 
But he checked me and said : " Should you like to stay with us, Trotwood, 
or to go elsewhere ? " 

" To stay " I answered, quickly. 

" You are sure ? " 

" If you please. If I may ! " 



166 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Why, it *s but a dull life that we lead here, boy, I am afraid," lie said. 

" Not more dull for me thau Agnes, sir. Not dull at all ! " 

" Than Agnes," he repeated, walking slowly to the great chimney-piece, 
and leaning against it. " Than Agnes ! " 

He had drank wine that evening (or I fancied it), until his eyes were 
bloodshot. Not that I could see them now, for they were cast down, 
and shaded by his hand ; but I had noticed them a little while before. 

"Now I wonder," he muttered, "whether my Agnes tires of me. 
When should I ever tire of her ! But that 's different — that 's quite 
different." 

He was musing — not speaking to me; so I remained quiet, 

" A dull old house," he said, " and a monotonous life ; but I must have 
her near me. I must keep her near me. If the thought that I may die and 
leave my darling, or that my darling may die and leave me, comes, like a 
spectre, to distress my happiest hours, and is only to be drowned in " 

He did not supply the word; but pacing slowly to the place where he 
had sat, and mechanically going through the action of pouring wine from 
the empty decanter, set it down and paced back again. 

" If it is miserable to bear, when she is here," he said, " what would it 
be, and she away ? No, no, no. I can not try that." 

He leaned against the chimney-piece, brooding so long that I could 
not decide whether to run the risk of disturbing him by going, or to 
remain quietly where I was, until he should come out of his reverie. At 
length he aroused himself, and looked about the room until his eyes 
encountered mine. 

" Stay with us, Trotwood, eh ? " he said, in his usual manner, and as 
if he were answering something I had just said. " I am glad of it. You 
are company to us both. It is wholesome to have you here. Wholesome 
for me, wholesome for Agnes, wholesome perhaps for all of us." 

"I am sure it is for me, sir," I said. " I am so glad to be here." 

" That 's a fine fellow ! " said Mr. Wickfield. " As long as you are 
glad to be here, you shall stay here." He shook hands with me upon it, 
and clapped me on the back ; and told me that when I had anything to do 
at night after Agnes had left us, or when I wished to read for my own 
pleasure, I was free to come down to his room, if he were there and if I 
desired it for company's sake, and to sit with him. I thanked him for his 
consideration ; and, as he went down soon afterwards, and I was not tired, 
went down too, with a book in my hand, to avail myself, for half-an-hour, 
of his permission. 

But, seeing a light in the little round office, and immediately feeling 
myself attracted towards Uriah Heep, who had a sort of fascination for me, 
I went in there instead. I found Uriah reading a great fat book, with 
such demonstrative attention, that his lank fore-finger followed up every 
line as he read, and made clammy tracks along the page (or so I fully 
believed) like a snail. 

" You are working late to-night, Uriah," says I. 

" Yes, Master Copperfield," says Uriah. 

As I was getting on the stool opposite, to talk to him more conveniently, 
I observed that he had not such a thing as a smile about him, and that he 
could only widen his mouth and make two hard creases down his cheeks, 
one on each side, to stand for one. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 167 

"I am not doing office-work, Master Copperfield," said Uriah. 

"What work, then? " I asked. 

"I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copperfield," said 
Uriah. " I am going through Tidd's Practice. Oh, what a writer 
Mr. Tidd is, Master Copperfield ! " 

My stool was such a tower of observation, that as I watched him 
reading on again, after this rapturous exclamation, and following up the 
lines with his fore-finger, I observed that his nostrils, which were thin and 
pointed, with sharp dints in them, had a singular and most uncomfortable 
way of expanding and contracting themselves — that they seemed to 
twinkle, instead of his eyes, which hardly ever twinkled at all. 

" I suppose you are quite a great lawyer ? " I said, after looking at him 
for some time. 

"Me, Master Copperfield?" said Uriah. "Oh, no! I'm a very 
umble person." 

It was no fancy of mine about his hands, I observed ; for he frequently 
ground the palms against each other as if to squeeze them dry and warm, 
besides often wiping them, in a stealthy way, on his pocket-handkerchief. 

" I am well aware that I am the umblest person going," said Uriah Heep, 
modestly ; " let the other be where he may. My mother is likewise a 
very umble person. We live in a numble abode, Master Copperfield, but 
have much to be thankful for. My father's former calling was umble. 
He was a sexton." 

" What is he now? " I asked. 

" He is a partaker of glory at present, Master Copperfield," said Uriah 
Heep. " But we have much to be thankful for. How much have I to be 
thankful for, in living with Mr. Wickfield ! " 

I asked Uriah if he had been with Mr. Wickfield long ? 

" I have been with him, going on four year, Master Copperfield," said 
Uriah ; shutting up his book, after carefully marking the place where he 
had left off. " Since a year after my father's death. How much have I to 
be thankful for, in that ! How much have I to be thankful for, in Mr. 
Wickfield's kind intention to give me my articles, which would otherwise 
not lay within the umble means of mother and self! " 

" Then, when your articled time is over, you '11 be a regular lawyer, I 
suppose ? " said I. 

" With the blessing of Providence, Master Copperfield," returned 
Uriah. 

"Perhaps you'll be a partner in Mr. Wickfield's business, one of these 
days," I said, to make myself agreeable; "and it will be Wickfield and 
Heep, or Heep late Wickfield." 

" Oh, no, Master Copperfield," returned Uriah, shaking his head, " I 
am much too umble for that ! " 

He certainly did look uncommonly like the carved face on the beam 
outside my window, as he sat, in his humility, eyeing me sideways, with 
his mouth widened, and the creases in his cheeks. 

" Mr. Wickfield is a most excellent man, Master Copperfield," said 
Uriah. " If you have known him long, you know it, I am sure, much 
better than I can inform you." 

I replied that I was certain he was ; but that I had not known him long 
myself, though he was a friend of my aunt's. 



168 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield," said Uriah. " Tour aunt is a sweet 
lady, Master Copperfield ! " 

He had a way of writhing when he wanted to express enthusiasm, which 
was very ugly ; and which diverted my attention from the compliment he 
had paid my relation, to the snaky twistings of his throat and body. 

" A sweet lady, Master Copperfield ! " said Uriah Heep. " She has a 
great admiration for Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield, I believe ? " 

I said "Yes," boldly; not that I knew anything about it, Heaven 
forgive me ! 

" I hope you have, too, Master Copperfield," said Uriah. " But I am 
sure you must have." 

" Everybody must have," I returned. 

" Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield," said Uriah Heep, " for that 
remark ! It is so true ! Umble as I am, I know it is so true ! Oh, thank 
you, Master Copperfield ! " 

He writhed himself quite off his stool in the excitement of his feelings, 
and, being off, began to make arrangements for going home. 

" Mother will be expecting me," he said, referring to a pale, inex- 
pressive-faced watch in his pocket, " and getting uneasy ; for though we are 
very umble, Master Copperfield, Ave are much attached to one another. 
If you would come and see us, any afternoon, and take a cup of tea at our 
lowly dwelling, mother would be as proud of your company as I should be. 

I said I should be glad to come. 

" Thank you, Master Copperfield," returned Uriah, putting his book away 
upon a shelf. — " I suppose you stop here, some time, Master Copperfield ? " 

I said I was going to be brought up there, I believed, as long as I 
remained at school. 

"Oh, indeed!" exclaimed Uriah. "I should think you would come 
into the business at last, Master Copperfield ! " 

I protested that I had no views of that sort, and that no such scheme 
was entertained in my behalf by anybody ; but Uriah insisted on blandly 
replying to all my assurances, " Oh, yes, Master Copperfield, I should 
think you would, indeed ! " and, " Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield, I 
should think you would, certainly ! " over and over again. Being, at last, 
ready to leave the office for the night, he asked me if it would suit my 
convenience to have the light put out ; and on my answering " Yes," in- 
stantly extinguished it. After shaking hands with me — his hand felt like 
a fish, in the dark — he opened the door into the street a very little, and 
crept out, and shut it, leaving me to grope my way back into the house : 
which cost me some trouble and a fall over his stool. This was the 
proximate cause, I suppose, of my dreaming about him, for what ap- 
peared to me to be half the night ; and dreaming, among other things, 
that he had launched Mr. Peggotty's house on a piratical expedition, with 
a black flag at the mast-head, bearing the inscription " Tidd's Practice," 
under which diabolical ensign he was carrying me and little Em'ly to the 
Spanish Main, to be drowned. 

I got a little the better of my uneasiness when I went to school next day, 
and a good deal the better next day, and so shook it off by degrees that 
in less than a fortnight I was quite at home, and happy, among my new 
companions. I was awkward enough in their games, and backward enough 
in their studies ; but custom would improve me in the first respect, I hoped, 



OP DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 169 

and hard work in the second. Accordingly, I went to work very hard, 
both in play and in earnest, and gained great commendation. And, in a very 
little while, the Murdstone and Grinby life became so strange to me that I 
hardly believed in it, while my present life grew so familiar, that I seemed 
to have been leading it a long time. 

Doctor Strong's was an excellent school ; as different from Mr. Creakle's 
as good is from evil. It was very gravely and decorously ordered, and on 
a sound system ; with an appeal, in everything, to the honour and good 
faith of the boys, and an avowed intention to rely on their possession of 
those qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy of it, which worked 
wonders. We all felt that we had a part in the management of the place, 
and in sustaining its character and dignity. Hence, we soon became 
warmly attached to it — I am sure I did for one, and I never knew, in all 
my time, of any other boy being otherwise — and learnt with a good will, 
desiring to do it credit. We had noble games out of hours, and plenty of 
liberty; but even then, as I remember, we were well spoken of in the town, 
and rarely did any disgrace, by our appearance or manner, to the reputation 
of Doctor Strong and Doctor Strong's boys. 

Some of the higher scholars boarded in the Doctor's house, and through 
them I learnt, at second hand, some particulars of the Doctor's history — as 
how he had not yet been married twelve months to the beautiful young lady 
I had seen in the study, whom he had married for love ; as she had not a six- 
pence, and had a world of poor relations (so our fellows said) ready to swarm 
the Doctor out of house and home. Also, how the Doctor's cogitating 
manner was attributable to his being always engaged in looking out for 
Greek roots ; which, in my innocence and ignorance, T supposed to be a 
botanical furor on the Doctor's part, especially as he always looked at the 
ground when he walked about — until I understood that they were roots of 
words, with a view to a new Dictionary, which he had in contemplation. 
Adams, our head-boy, who had a turn for mathematics, had made a calcu- 
lation, I was informed, of the time this Dictionary would take in completing, 
on the Doctor's plan, and at the Doctor's rate of going. He considered 
that it might be done in one thousand six hundred and forty-nine years, 
counting from the Doctor's last, or sixty-second, birthday. 

But the Doctor himself was the idol of the whole school : and it must 
have been a badly composed school if he had been anything else, for he 
was the kindest of men ; with a simple faith in him that might have 
touched the stone hearts of the very urns upon the wall. As he walked 
up and down that part of the court-yard which was at the side of the 
house, with the stray rooks and jackdaws looking after him with their 
heads cocked slyly, as if they knew how much more knowing they were in 
worldly aifairs than he, if any sort of vagabond could only get near enough 
to his creaking shoes to attract his attention to one sentence of a tale of 
distress, that vagabond was made for the next two days. It was so 
notorious in the house, that the masters and head-boys took pains to 
cut these marauders off at angles, and to get out of windows, and turn 
them out of the court-yard, before they could make the Doctor aware of their 
presence ; which was sometimes happily effected within a few yards of 
him, without his knowing anything of the matter, as he jogged to and fro. 
Outside his own domain, and unprotected, he was a very sheep for the 
shearers. He would have taken his gaiters off his legs, to give away. In 



170 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

fact, there was a story current amoug us (I have no idea, and never had, 
on what authority, but I have believed it for so many years that I feel 
quite certain it is true), that on a frosty day, one winter time, he actually 
did bestow his gaiters on a beggar-woman, who occasioned some scandal 
in the neighbourhood by exhibiting a fine infant from door to door, 
wrapped in those garments, which were universally recognised, being as 
well known in the vicinity as the Cathedral. The legend added that the 
only person who did not identify them was the Doctor himself, who, when 
they were shortly afterwards displayed at the door of a little second-hand 
shop of no very good repute, where such things were taken in exchange for 
gin, was more than once observed to handle them approvingly, as if admiring 
some curious novelty in the pattern, and considering them an improvement 
on his own. 

It was very pleasant to see the Doctor with his pretty young wife. 
He had a fatherly, benignant way of showing his fondness for her, which 
seemed in itself to express a good man. I often saw them walking in the 
garden where the peaches were, and I sometimes had a nearer observation 
of them in the study or the parlor. She appeared to me to take great care 
of the Doctor, and to like him very much, though I never thought her 
vitally interested in the Dictionary : some cumbrous fragments of which 
work the Doctor always carried in his pockets, and in the lining of his hat, 
and generally seemed to be expounding to her as they walked about. 

I saw a good deal of Mrs. Strong, both because she had taken a liking 
for me on the morning of my introduction to the Doctor, and was always 
afterwards kind to me, and interested in me j and because she was very 
fond of Agnes, and was often backwards and forwards at our house. 
There was a curious constraint between her and Mr. Wickfield, I thought 
(of whom she seemed to be afraid), that never wore off. When she came 
there of an evening, she always shrunk from accepting his escort home, 
and ran away with me instead. And sometimes, as we were running gaily 
across the Cathedral yard together, expecting to meet nobody, we would 
meet Mr. Jack Maldon, who was always surprised to see us. 

Mrs. Strong's mama was a lady I took great delight in. Her name was 
Mrs. Markleham ; but our boys used to call her the Old Soldier, on account 
of her generalship, and the skill with which she marshalled great forces of 
relations against the Doctor. She was a little, sharp-eyed woman, who 
used to wear, when she was dressed, one unchangeable cap, ornamented 
with some artificial flowers, and two artificial butterflies supposed to be 
hovering above the flowers. There was a superstition among us that this 
cap had come from France, and could only originate in the workmanship 
of that ingenious nation : but all I certainly know about it, is, that it 
always made its appearance of an evening, wheresoever Mrs. Markle- 
ham made her appearance ; that it was carried about to friendly meetings 
in a Hindoo basket; that the butterflies had the gift of trembling 
constantly ; and that they improved the shining hours at Doctor Strong's 
expense, like busy bees. 

I observed the Old Soldier — not to adopt the name disrespectfully— to 
pretty good advantage, on a night which is made memorable to me by some- 
thing else I shall relate. It was the night of a little party at the Doctor's, 
which was given on the occasion of Mr. Jack Mai don's departure for India, 
whither he was going as a cadet, or something of that kind : Mr. "Wickfield 



OP DAVID COPPERPIELD. 171 

having at length arranged the business. It happened to be the Doctor's 
birthday, too. We had had a holiday, had made presents to him in the 
morning, had made a speech to him through the head-boy, and had cheered 
him until we were hoarse, and until he had shed tears. And now, in the 
evening, Mr. Wickfield, Agnes, and I, went to have tea with him in his 
private capacity. 

Mr. Jack Maldon was there, before us. Mrs. Strong, dressed in white, 
with cherry-colored ribbons, was playing the piano, when we went in ; and 
he was leaning over her to turn the leaves. The dear red and white of 
her complexion was not so blooming and flower-like as usual, I thought, 
when she turned round ; but she looked very pretty, wonderfully pretty. 

" I have forgotten, Doctor," said Mrs. Strong's mama, when we were 
seated, " to pay you the compliments of the day — though they are, as you 
may suppose, very far from being mere compliments in. my case. Allow 
me to wish you many happy returns." 

" I thank you, ma'am," replied the Doctor. 

" Many, many, many, happy returns," said the Old Soldier. "Not only 
for your own sake, but for Annie's, and John Maldon's, and many other 
peoples'. It seems but yesterday to me, John, when you were a little 
creature, a head shorter than Master Copperfield, making baby love to 
Annie behind the gooseberry bushes in the back-garden." 

" My dear mama," said Mrs. Strong, " never mind that now." 

"Annie, don't be absurd," returned her mother. " If you are to blush 
to hear of such things, now you are an old married woman, when are you 
not to blush to hear of them? " 

"Old?" exclaimed Mi*. Jack Maldon. "Annie? Come!" 

" Yes, John," returned the Soldier. " Virtually, an old married woman. 
Although not old by years — for when did you ever hear me say, or who 
has ever heard me say, that a girl of twenty was old by years ! — your 
cousin is the wife of the Doctor, and, as such, what I have described her. It 
is well for you, John, that your cousin is the wife of the Doctor. You have 
found in him an influential and kind friend, who will be kinder yet, I venture 
to predict, if you deserve it. I have no false pride. I never hesitate to 
admit, frankly, that there are some members of our family who want a friend. 
You were one yourself, before your cousin's influence raised up one for you." 

The Doctor, in the goodness of his heart, waved his hand as if to make 
light of it, and save Mr. Jack Maldon from any further reminder. But 
Mrs. Markleham changed her chair for one next the Doctor's, and putting 
her fan on his coat-sleeve, said : 

" No, really, my dear Doctor, you must excuse me if I appear to dwell 
on this rather, because I feel so very strongly. I call it quite my mono- 
mania, it is such a subject of mine. You are a blessing to us. You really 
are a Boon, you know." 

" Nonsense, nonsense," said the Doctor. 

" No, no, I beg your pardon," retorted the Old Soldier. " With nobody 
present, but our dear and confidential friend Mr. Wickfield, I cannot consent 
to be put down. I shall begin to assert the privileges of a mother-in-law, 
if you go on like that, and scold you. I am perfectly honest and outspoken. 
What I am saying, is what I said when you first overpowered me with 
surprise — you remember how surprised I was ? — by proposing for Annie. 
Not that there was anything so very much out of the way, in the mere 



172 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

act of the proposal — it would be ridiculous to say that! — but because, you 
having known her poor father, and having known her from a baby six 
months old, I hadn't thought of you in such a light at all, or indeed as a 
marrying man in any way, — simply that, you know." 

"Aye, aye," returned the Doctor, good-humoredly. " Never mind." 

" But I do mind," said the Old Soldier, laying her fan upon his lips. 
" I mind very much. I recal these things that I may be contradicted if I 
am wrong. Well ! Then I spoke to Annie, and I told her what had 
happened. I said, ' My dear, here 's Doctor Strong has positively been 
and made you the subject of a handsome declaration and an offer. 5 Did 
I press it in the least ? No. I said, ' Now, Annie, tell me the truth 
this moment ; is your heart free ? ' ' Mama,' she said, crying, * I am 
extremely young ' — which was perfectly true — ' and I hardly know if I 
have a heart at all.' c Then, my dear,' I said, ' you may rely upon it, 
it 's free. At all events, my love,' said I, ' Doctor Strong is in an 
agitated state of mind, and must be answered. He cannot be kept in his 
present state of suspense.' ' Mama,' said Annie, still crying, ' would he 
be unhappy without me ? If he would, I honor and respect him so 
much, that I think I will have him.' So it was settled. And then, and 
not till then, I said to Annie, ' Annie, Doctor Strong will not only be 
your husband, but he will represent your late father : he will represent the 
head of our family, he will represent the wisdom and station, and I may 
say the means, of our family ; and will be, in short, a Boon to it.' I used 
the word at the time, and I have used it again, to-day. If I have any 
merit, it is consistency." 

The daughter had sat quite silent and still during this speech, with her 
eyes fixed on the ground ; her cousin standing near her, and looking on 
the ground too. She now said very softly, in a trembling voice : 

" Mama, I hope you have finished ? " 

" No, my dear Annie," returned the Soldier, " I have not quite finished. 
Since you ask me, my love, I reply that I have not. I complain that you 
really are a little unnatural towards your own family ; and, as it is of no 
use complaining to you, I mean to complain to your husband. Now, my 
dear Doctor, do look at that silly wife of yours." 

As the Doctor turned his kind face, with its smile of simplicity and 
gentleness, towards her, she drooped her head more. I noticed that Mr. 
Wickfield looked at her steadily. 

"When I happened to say to that naughty thing, the other day," pur- 
sued her mother, shaking her head and her fan at her, playfully, " that 
there was a family circumstance she might mention to you — indeed, I 
think, was bound to mention — she said, that to mention it was to ask a 
favor ; and that, as you were too generous, and as for her to ask was 
always to have, she wouldn't." 

" Annie, my dear," said the Doctor. " That was wrong. It robbed 
me of a pleasure." 

" Almost the very words I said to her ! " exclaimed her mother. 
" Now really, another time, when I know what she would tell you but 
for this reason, and won't, I have a great mind, my dear Doctor, to tell 
you myself." 

" I shall be glad if you will," returned the Doctor. 

" Shall I ? " 



OP DAVID COPPEILFIELD. 173 

" Certainly." 

"Well, then, I will!" said the Old Soldier. "That's a bargain." 
And having, I suppose, carried her point, she tapped the Doctor's hand 
several times with her fan (which she kissed first), and returned 
triumphantly to her former station. 

Some more company coming in, among whom were the two masters 
and Adams, the talk became general ; and it naturally turned on Mr. 
Jack Maldon, and his voyage, and the country he was going to, and his 
various plans and prospects. He was to leave that night, after supper, 
in a postchaise, for Gravesend ; where the ship, in which he was to make 
the voyage, lay ; and was to be gone — unless he came home on leave, or 
for his health — I don't know how many years. I recollect it was settled 
by general consent that India was quite a misrepresented country, and 
had nothing objectionable in it, but a tiger or two, and a little heat in the 
warm part of the day. For my own part, I looked on Mr. Jack Maldon 
as a modern Sinbad, and pictured him the bosom friend of all the Kajahs 
in the east, sitting under canopies, smoking curly golden pipes — a mile 
long, if they could be straightened out. 

Mrs. Strong was a very pretty singer : as I knew, who often heard her 
singing by herself. But, whether she was afraid of singing before people, 
or was out of voice that evening, it was certain that she couldn't sing at 
all. She tried a duet, once, wdth her cousin Maldon, but could not so 
much as begin ; and afterwards, when she tried to sing by herself, although 
she began sweetly, her voice died away on a sudden, and left her quite 
distressed, with her head hanging down over the keys. The good Doctor 
said she was nervous, and, to relieve her, proposed a round game at cards ; 
of which he knew as much as of the art of playing the trombone. But I 
remarked that the Old Soldier took him into custody directly, for her 
partner ; and instructed him, as the first preliminary of initiation, to give 
her all the silver he had in his pocket. 

We had a merry game, not made the less merry by the Doctor's 
mistakes, of which he committed an innumerable quantity, in spite of the 
watchfulness of the butterflies, and to their great aggravation. Mrs. Strong 
had declined to play, on the ground of not feeling very well ; and her 
cousin Maldon had excused himself because he had some packing to do. 
When he had done it, however, he returned, and they sat together, talking, 
on the sofa. From time to time she came and looked over the Doctor's 
hand, and told him what to play. She was very pale, as she bent over 
him, and I thought her finger trembled as she pointed out the cards ; but 
the Doctor was quite happy in her attention, and took no notice of this, 
if it were so. 

At supper, we were hardly so gay. Every one appeared to feel that a 
parting of that sort was an awkward thing, and that the nearer it 
approached, the more awkward it was. Mr. Jack Maldon tried to be 
very talkative, but was not at his ease, and made matters worse. And 
they were not improved, as it appeared to me, by the Old Soldier : who 
continually recalled passages of Mr. Jack Maldon's youth. 

The Doctor, however, who felt, I am sure, that he was making every- 
body happy, was well pleased, and had no suspicion, but that we were all 
at the utmost height of enjoyment. 

"Annie, my dear," said he, looking at his watch, and filling his 



174 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

glass, "it is past your cousin Jack's time, and we must not detain 
him, since time and tide — both concerned in this case — wait for no man. 
Mr. Jack Maldon, you have a long voyage, and a strange country, before you ; 
but many men have had both, and many men will have both, to the end of 
time. The winds you are going to tempt, have wafted thousands upon 
thousands to fortune, and brought thousands upon thousands happily back." 

" It 's an affecting thing," said Mrs. Markleham — " however it 's viewed, 
it 's affecting — to see a fine young man one has known from an infant, 
going away to the other end of the world, leaving all he knows behind, and 
not knowing what 's before him. A young man really well deserves 
constant support and patronage," looking at the Doctor, "who makes 
such sacrifices." 

" Time will go fast with you, Mr. Jack Maldon," pursued the Doctor, 
" and fast with all of us. Some of us can hardly expect, perhaps, in the 
natural course of things, to greet you on your return. The next best 
thing is to hope to do it, and that 's my case. I shall not weary you 
with good advice. You have long had a good model before you, in your 
cousin Annie. Imitate her virtues as nearly as you can." 

Mrs. Markleham fanned herself, and shook her head. 

" Farewell. Mr. Jack," said the Doctor, standing up ; on which we all 
stood up. "A prosperous voyage out, a thriving career abroad, and a 
happy return home ! " 

We all drank the toast, and all shook hands with Mr. Jack Maldon ; 
after which he hastily took leave of the ladies who were there, and hurried 
to the door, where he was received, as he got into the chaise, with a tre- 
mendous broadside of cheers discharged by our boys, who had assembled on 
the lawn for the purpose. Eunningin among them to swell the ranks, I was 
very near the chaise when it rolled away; and I had a lively impression made 
upon me, in the midst of the noise and dust, of having seen Mr. Jack Maldon 
rattle past with an agitated face, and something cherry-colored in his hand. 

After another broadside for the Doctor, and another for the Doctor's 
wife, the boys dispersed, and I went back into the house, where I found the 
guests all standing in a group about the Doctor, discussing how Mr. Jack 
Maldon had gone away, and how he had borne it, and how he had felt it, 
and all the rest of it. In the midst of these remarks, Mrs. Markleham 
cried : " Where 's Annie ! " 

No Annie was there ; and when they called to her, no Annie replied. 
But all pressing out of the room, in a crowd, to see what was the matter, 
we found her lying on the hall floor. There was great alarm at first, until 
it was found that she was in a swoon, and that the swoon was yielding to 
the usual means of recovery ; when the Doctor, who had lifted her head 
upon his knee, put her curls aside with his hand, and said, looking 
around : 

" Poor Annie ! She 's so faithful and tender-hearted ! It 's the parting 
from her old playfellow and friend — her favorite cousin — that has done 
this. Ah ! It 's a pity ! I am very sorry ! " 

When she opened her eyes, and saw where she was, and that we 
were all standing about her, she arose with assistance : turning her head, 
as she did so, to lay it on the Doctor's shoulder — or to hide it, I 
don't know which. We went into the drawing-room, to leave her with the 
Doctor and her mother ; but she said, it seemed, that she was better than 







f/l&fo/lM. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 175 

she had been since morning, and that she would rather be brought among 
us ; so they brought her in, looking very white and weak, I thought, and 
sat her on a sofa. 

" Annie, my dear," said her mother, doing something to her dress. 
" See here ! You have lost a bow. Will anybody be so good as find a 
ribbon; a cherry-colored ribbon?" 

It was the one she had worn at her bosom. We all looked for it — I 
myself looked everywhere, I am certain — bat nobody could find it. 

" Do you recollect where you had it last, Annie ? " said her mother. 

I wondered how I could have thought she looked white, or anything 
but burning red, when she answered that she had had it safe, a little while 
ago, she thought, but it was not worth looking for. 

Nevertheless, it was looked for again, and still not found. She 
entreated that there might be no more searching ; but it was still sought 
for, in a desultory way, until she was quite well, and the company took 
their departure. 

We walked very slowly home, Mr. Wickfield, Agnes, and I — Agnes 
and I admiring the moonlight, and Mi*. Wickfield scarcely raising his 
eyes from the ground. When we, at last, reached our own door, Agnes 
discovered that she had left her little reticule behind. Delighted to be of 
any service to her, I ran back to fetch it. 

I went into the supper-room where it had been left, which was deserted 
and dark. But a door of communication between that and the Doctor's 
study, where there was a light, being open, I passed on there, to say 
what I wanted, and to get a candle. 

The Doctor was sitting in his easy chair by the fireside, and his young 
wife was on a stool at his feet. The Doctor, with a complacent smile, was 
reading aloud some manuscript explanation or statement of a theory out 
of that interminable Dictionary, and she was looking up at him. But, with 
such a face as I never saw. It was so beautiful in its form, it was so 
ashy pale, it was so fixed in its abstraction, it was so full of a wild, sleep- 
walking, dreamy horror of I don't know what. The eyes were wide open, 
and her brown hair fell in two rich clusters on her shoulders, and on her 
white dress, disordered by the want of the lost ribbon. Distinctly as I 
recollect her look, I cannot say of what it was expressive. I cannot even 
say of what it is expressive to me now, rising again before my older 
judgment. Penitence, humiliation, shame, pride, love, and trustfulness — 
I see them all • and in them all, I see that horror of I don't know what. 

My entrance, and my saying what I wanted, roused her. It disturbed 
the Doctor too, for when I went back to replace the candle I had taken 
from the table, he was patting her head, in his fatherly way, and saying 
he was a merciless drone to let her tempt him into reading on ; and he 
would have her go to bed. 

But she asked him, in a rapid, urgent manner, to let her stay — to let 
her feel assured (I heard her murmur some broken words to this effect) that 
she was in his confidence that night. And, as she turned again towards 
him, after glancing at me as I left the room and went out at the door, I 
saw her cross her hands upon his knee, and look up at him with the same 
face, something quieted, as he resumed his reading. 

It made a great impression on me, and I remembered it a long time 
afterwards •, as I shall have occasion to narrate when the time comes. 



176 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 



CHAPTER XYII. 

SOMEBODY TURNS UP. 

It has not occurred to me to mention Peggotty since ] ran away ; but, 
of course, I wrote her a letter almost as soon as I was housed at Dover, 
and another, and a longer letter, containing all particulars fully related, 
w 7 hen my aunt took me formally under her protection. On my being 
settled at Doctor Strong's I wrote to her again, detailing my happy con- 
dition and prospects. I never could have derived anything like the 
pleasure from spending the money Mr. Dick had given me, that I felt 
in sending a gold half-guinea to Peggotty, per post, inclosed in this last 
letter, to discharge the sum I had borrowed of her : in which epistle, not 
before, I mentioned about the young man with the donkey-cart. 

To these communications Peggotty replied as promptly, if not as con- 
cisely, as a merchant's clerk. Her utmost powers of expression (winch 
were certainly not great in ink) were exhausted in the attempt to write 
what she felt on the subject of my journey. Pour sides of incoherent and 
interjectional beginnings of sentences, that had no end, except blots, were 
inadequate to afford her any relief. But the blots were more expressive 
to me than the best composition ; for they showed me that Peggotty had 
been crying all over the paper, and what could I have desired more ? 

I made out, without much difficulty, that she could not take quite 
kindly to my aunt yet. The notice was too short after so long a prepos- 
session the other way. We never knew a person, she wrote; but to 
think that Miss Betsey should seem to be so different from what she had 
been thought to be, was a Moral ! — that was her word. She was evidently 
still afraid of Miss Betsey, for she sent her grateful duty to her but timidly ; 
and she was evidently afraid of me, too, and entertained the probability of 
my running away again soon : if I might judge from the repeated hints she 
threw out, that the coach-fare to Yarmouth was always to be had of her 
for the asking. 

She gave me one piece of intelligence which affected me very much, 
namely, that there had been a sale of the furniture at our old home, and 
that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were gone away, and the house was shut 
up, to be let or sold. God knows I had had no part in it while they 
remained there, but it pained me to think of the dear old place as 
altogether abandoned ; of the weeds growing tall in the garden, and the 
fallen leaves lying thick and wet upon the paths. I imagined how the 
winds of winter would howl round it, how the cold rain would beat upon 
the window-glass, how the moon would make ghosts on the walls of the 
empty rooms, watching their solitude all night. I thought afresh of the 
grave in the churchyard, underneath the tree : and it seemed as if the 
house were dead too, now, and all connected with my father and mother 
were faded away. 

There was no other news in Peggotty's letters. Mr. Barkis was an 
excellent husband, she said, though still a little near ; but we all had our 



OP DAVID COPPEItPIELD. 177 

faults, and she had plenty (though I am sure I don't know what they 
were) ; and he sent his duty, and my little bedroom was always ready for 
me. Mr. Peggotty was well, and Ham was well, and Mrs. Gummidge 
was but poorly, and little Em'ly wouldn't send her love, but said that 
Peggotty might send it, if she liked. 

All this intelligence I dutifully imparted to my aunt, only reserving to 
myself the mention of little Em'ly, to whom I instinctively felt that 
she would not very tenderly incline. While I was yet new at Doctor 
Strong's, she made several excursions over to Canterbury to see me, and 
always at unseasonable hours : with the view, I suppose, of taking me by 
surprise. But, finding me well employed, and bearing a good character, and 
hearing on all hands that I rose fast in the school, she soon discontinued 
these visits. I saw her on a Saturday, every third or fourth week, when I 
went over to Dover for a treat ; and I saw Mr. Dick every alternate Wednes- 
day, when he arrived by stage-coach at noon, to stay until next morning. 

On these occasions Mr. Dick never travelled without a leathern writing- 
desk, containing a supply of stationery and the Memorial ; in relation to 
which document he had a notion that time was beginning to press now, 
and that it really must be got out of hand. 

Mr. Dick was very partial to gingerbread. To render his visits the 
more agreeable, my aunt had instructed me to open a credit for him at a 
cake-shop, which was hampered with the stipulation that he should not 
be served with more than one shilling's-worth in the course of any one 
day. This, and the reference of all his little bills at the county inn where 
he slept, to my aunt, before they were paid, induced me to suspect that 
he was only allowed to rattle his money, and not to spend it. I found on 
further investigation that this was so, or at least there was an agreement 
between him and my aunt that he should account to her for all his 
disbursements. As he had no idea of deceiving her, and always desired to 
please her, he was thus made chary of launching into expense. On this 
point, as well as on all other possible points, Mr. Dick was convinced that 
my aunt was the wisest and most wonderful of women ; as he repeatedly 
told me with infinite secresy, and always in a whisper. 

" Trotwood," said Mr. Dick, with an air of mystery, after imparting 
this confidence to me, one Wednesday ; " who 's the man that hides near 
our house and frightens her." 

" Frightens my aunt, sir ? " 
. Mr. Dick nodded. " I thought nothing would have frightened her," 
he said, " for she 's — " here he whispered softly, " don't mention it — the 
wisest and most wonderful of women." Having said which, he drew 
back, to observe the effect which this description of her made upon me. 

" The first time he came," said Mr. Dick, " was — let me see — sixteen 
hundred and forty-nine was the date of King Charles's execution. J 
think you said sixteen hundred and forty-nine ? " 

" Yes, sir." 

" I don't know how it can be," said Mr. Dick, sorely puzzled and 
shaking his head. " I don't think I am as old as that." 

" Was it in that year that the man appeared, sir ? " I asked. 

"Why, really," said Mr. Dick, "I don't see how it can have been in 
that year, Trotwood. Did you get that date out of history ? " 

"Yes, sir." N 



178 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" I suppose history never lies, does it?" said Mr. Dick, with a gleam 
of hope, 

" Oh dear, no, sir ! " I replied, most decisively. I was ingenuous and 
young, and I thought so. 

" I can't make it out," said Mr. Dick, shaking his head. " There 's 
something wrong, somewhere. However, it was very soon after the 
mistake was made of putting some of the trouble out of King Charles's 
head into my head, that the man first came. I was walking out with Miss 
Trotwood after tea, just at dark, and there he was, close to our house." 

" Walking about ? " I inquired. 

" Walking about ? " repeated Mr. Dick. " Let me see. I must recol- 
lect a bit. N — no, no ; he was not walking about." 

I asked, as the shortest way to get at it, what he was doing. 

" Well, he wasn't there at all," said Mr. Dick, " until he came up behind 
her, and whispered. Then she turned round and fainted, and I stood still 
and looked at him, and he walked away ; but that he should have been hiding 
ever since (in the ground or somewhere), is the most extraordinary thing 1" 

" Has he been hiding ever since ? " I asked. 

" To be sure he has," retorted Mr. Dick, nodding his head gravely. 
" Never came out, till last night ! We were walking last night, and he 
came up behind her again, and I knew him again." 

" And did he frighten my aunt again ? " 

" All of a shiver," said Mr. Dick, counterfeiting that affection and 
making his teeth chatter. " Held by the palings. Cried. But Trotwood, 
come here," getting me close to him, that he might whisper very softly ; 
" why did she give him money, boy, in the moonlight ? " 

" He was a beggar, perhaps." 

Mr. Dick shook his head, as utterly renouncing the suggestion ; and 
having replied a great many times, and with great confidence, " No 
beggar, no beggar, no beggar, sir ! " went on to say, that from his window 
he had afterwards, and late at night, seen my aunt give this person money 
outside the garden rails in the moonlight, who then slunk away — into the 
ground again, as he thought probable — and was seen no more : while my aunt 
came hurriedly and secretly back into the house, and had, even that morning, 
been quite different from her usual self; which preyed on Mr. Dick's mind. 

I had not the least belief, in the outset of this story, that the unknown 
was anything but a delusion of Mr. Dick's, and one of the line of that 
ill-fated Prince who occasioned him so much difficulty ; but after some re- 
flection I began to entertain the question whether an attempt, or threat of an 
attempt, might have been twice made to take poor Mr. Dick himself from 
under my aunt's protection, and whether my aunt, the strength of whose 
kind feeling towards him I knew from herself, might have been induced 
to pay a price for his peace and quiet. As I was already much attached to 
Mr. Dick, and very solicitous for his welfare, my fears favored this sup- 
position ; and for a long time his Wednesday hardly ever came round, 
without my entertaining a misgiving that he would not be on the coach- 
box as usual. There he always appeared, however, grey-headed, laughing, 
and happy; and he never had anything more to tell of the man who 
could frighten my aunt. 

These Wednesdays were the happiest days of Mr. Dick's life ; they were 
far from being the least happy of mine. He soon became known to every 



OP DAVID COPPEEPIELD. 179 

boy iii the school ; and though, he never took an active part in any game 
but kite-flying, was as deeply interested in all our sports as any one among 
us. How often have I seen him, intent upon a match at marbles or 
pegtop, looking on with a face of unutterable interest, and hardly breathing 
at the critical times ! How often, at hare and hounds, have I seen him 
mounted on a little knoll, cheering the whole field on to action, and waving 
his hat above his grey head, oblivious of King Charles the Martyr's head, 
and all belonging to it ! How many a summer-hour have I known to be but 
blissful minutes to him in the cricket-field ! How many winter days have I 
seen him, standing blue-nosed in the snow and east wind, looking at the 
boys going down the long slide, and clapping his worsted gloves in rapture! 

He was an universal favorite, and his ingenuity in little things was 
transcendant. He could cut oranges into such devices as none of us had 
an idea of. He could make a boat out of anything, from a skewer 
upwards. He could turn crampbones into chessmen; fashion Roman 
chariots from old court cards ; make spoked wheels out of cotton reels, 
and birdcages of old wire. But he was greatest of all, perhaps, in the 
articles of string and straw ; with which we were all persuaded he could 
do anything that could be done by hands. 

Mr. Dick's renown was not long confined to us. After a few Wednes- 
days, Doctor Strong himself made some inquiries of me about him, and I 
told him all my aunt had told me ; which interested the Doctor so much 
that he requested, on the occasion of his next visit, to be presented to 
him. This ceremony I performed ; and the Doctor begging Mr. Dick, 
whensoever he should not find me at the coach-office, to come on there, 
and rest himself until our morning's work was over, it soon passed into a 
custom for Mr. Dick to come on as a matter of course, and, if we were a 
little late, as often happened on a Wednesday, to walk about the court- 
yard, waiting for me. Here he made the acquaintance of the Doctor's 
beautiful young wife (paler than formerly, all this time ; more rarely seen 
by me or any one, I think ; and not so gay, but'not less beautiful), and so 
became more and more familiar by degrees, until, at last, he would come 
into the school and wait. He always sat in a particular corner, on a par- 
ticular stool, which was called "Dick," after him; here he would sit, with his 
grey head bent forward, attentively listening to whatever might be going on, 
with a profound veneration for the learning he had never been able to acquire. 

This veneration Mr, Dick extended to the Doctor, whom he thought 
the most subtle and accomplished philosopher of any age. It was long 
before Mr. Dick ever spoke to him otherwise than bare-headed ; and even 
when he and the Doctor had struck up quite a friendship, and would walk 
together by the hour, on that side of the courtyard which was known 
among us as The Doctor's Walk, Mr. Dick would pull off his hat at 
intervals to show his respect for wisdom and knowledge. How it ever 
came about, that the Doctor began to read out scraps of the famous 
Dictionary, in these walks, I never knew ; perhaps he felt it all the same, 
at first, as reading to himself. However, it passed into a custom too ; and 
Mr. Dick, listening with a face shining with pride and pleasure, in his heart 
of hearts believed the Dictionary to be the most delightful book in the world. 

A.s I think of them going up and down before those school-room 
windows — the Doctor reading with his complacent smile, an occasional 

n2 



180 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

flourish of the manuscript, or grave motion of his head ; and Mr. Dick 
listening, enchained by interest, with his poor wits calmly wandering God 
knows where, upon the wings of hard words — I think of it as one of the 
pleasantest things, in a quiet way, that I have ever seen. I feel as if they 
might go walking to and fro for ever, and the world might somehow b.e 
the better for it — as if a thousand things it makes a noise about, were not 
one-half so good for it, or me. 

Agnes was one of Mr. Dick's friends, very soon ; and in often coming to 
the house, he made acquaintance with Uriah. The friendship between him- 
self and me increased continually, and it was maintained on this odd footing : 
that, while Mr. Dick came professedly to look after me as my guardian, he 
always consulted me in any little matter of doubt that arose, and invariably 
guided himself by my advice ; not only having a high respect for my native 
sagacity, but considering that I inherited a good deal from my aunt. 

OneThursday morning, when I was about to walk with Mr. Dick from the 
hotel to the coach-office before going back to school (for we had an hour's 
school before breakfast), Imet Uriah in the street, who reminded me of the pro- 
miselhad made to taketea with himself and his mother: adding, with a writhe, 
"But I didn't expect you to keep it, Master Copperfield, we're so very umble." 

I really had not yet been able to make up my mind whether I liked 
Uriah or detested him ; and I was very doubtful about it still, as I stood 
looking him in the face in the street. But I felt it quite an affront to 
be supposed proud, and said I only wanted to be asked. 

" Oh, if that's all, Master Copperfield," said Uriah, "and it really isn't 
our umbleness that prevents you, will you come this evening ? But if it 
is our umbleness, I hope you won't mind owning to it, Master Copperfield ; 
for we are well aware of our condition." 

I said I would mention it to Mr. Wickfield, and if he approved, as I had no 
doubt he would, I would come with pleasure. So, at six o'clock that evening, 
which was one of the early office evenings, I announced myself as ready, 
to Uriah. 

" Mother will be proud indeed," he said, as we walked away together. 
" Or she would be proud, if it wasn't sinful, Master Copperfield." 

" Yet you didn't mind supposing /was proud this morning," I returned. 

" Oh dear no, Master Copperfield ! " returned Uriah. (f Oh, believe me, 
no ! Such a thought never came into my head ! I shouldn't have deemed 
it at all proud if you had thought us too umble for you. Because we are 
so very umble." 

"Have you been studying much law lately?" Iasked,to change the subject. 

" Oh, Master Copperfield," he said, with an air of self-denial, " my reading 
is hardly to be called study. I have passed an hour or two in the evening, 
sometimes, with Mr. Tidd." 

" Rather hard, I suppose ? " said I. 

" He is hard to me sometimes," returned Uriah. " But I don't know 
what he might be, to a gifted person." 

After beating a little tune on his chin as we walked on, with the two 
fore-fingers of his skeleton right hand, he added : 

" There are expressions, you see, Master Copperfield — Latin words and 
terms — in Mr. Tidd, that are trying to a reader of my umble attainments." 

" Would you like to be taught Latin? " I said, briskly. " I will teach 
it you with pleasure, as I learn it." 



OF DAVID COPPEttFIELD. 181 

" Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield," he answered, shaking his head. 
ct Iara sure it 's very kind of you to make the offer, but I am much too 
umble to accept it." 

" What nonsense, Uriah ! " 

" Oh, indeed you must excuse me, Master Copperfield ! I am greatly 
obliged, and I should like it of all things, I assure you ; but I am far too 
umble. There are people enough to tread upon me in my lowly state, 
without my doing outrage to their feelings by possessing learning. 
Learning ain't for me. A person like myself had better not aspire. If he 
is to get on in life, he must get on umbly, Master Copperfield." 

I never saw his mouth so wide, or the creases in his cheeks so deep, as 
when he delivered himself of these sentiments : shaking his head all the 
time, and writhing modestly. 

" I think you are wrong, Uriah," I said. M I dare say there are several 
things that I could teach you, if you would like to learn them." 

" Oh, I don't doubt that, Master Copperfield," he answered; "not in 
the least. But not being umble yourself, you don't judge well, perhaps, 
for them that are. I won't provoke my betters with knowledge, thank you. 
I 'm much too umble. Here is my umble dwelling, Master Copperfield ! " 

We entered a low, old-fashioned room, walked straight into from the 
street, and found there, Mrs. Heep, who was the dead image of Uriah, 
only short. She received me with the utmost humility, and apologised 
to me for giving her son a kiss, observing that, lowly as they were, they 
had their natural affections, which they hoped would give no offence to 
any one. It was a perfectly decent room, half parlor and half kitchen, but 
not at all a snug room. The tea-things were set upon the table, and the 
kettle was boiling on the hob. There was a chest of drawers with an escru- 
toire top, for Uriah to read or write at of an evening ; there was Uriah's blue 
bag lying down and vomiting papers; there was a company of Uriah's books, 
commanded by Mr. Tidd; there was a corner cupboard; and there were the 
usual articles of furniture. I don't remember that any individual object had 
a bare, pinched, spare look ; but I do remember that the whole place had. 

It was perhaps a part of Mrs. Heep's humility, that she still wore weeds. 
Notwithstanding the lapse of time that had occurred since Mr. Heep's 
decease, she still wore weeds. I think there was some compromise in the 
cap ; but otherwise she was as weedy as in the early days of her mourning. 

" This is a day to be remembered, my Uriah, I am sure," said Mrs. 
Heep, making the tea, "when Master Copperfield pays us a visit." 

" I said you 'd think so, mother," said Uriah. 

" If I could have wished father to remain among us for any reason," 
said Mrs. Heep, " it would have been, that he might have known his com- 
pany this afternoon." 

I felt embarrassed by these compliments ; but I was sensible, too, of 
being entertained as an honored guest, and I thought Mrs. Heep an 
agreeable woman. 

" My Uriah," said Mrs. Heep, " has looked forward to this, sir, a long 
while. He had his fears that our umbleness stood in the way, and I joined 
in them myself. Umble we are, umble we have been, umble we shall 
ever be," said Mrs. Heep. 

" I am sure you have no occasion to be so, ma'am," I said, " unless you 
like." 



182 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

"Thank you, sir," retorted Mrs. Heep. "We know our station and 
are thankful in it." 

I found that Mrs. Heep gradually got nearer to me, and that Uriah gra- 
dually got opposite to me, and that they respectfully plied me with the choicest 
of the eatables on the table. There was nothing particularly choice there, to 
be sure; but I took the will for the deed, and felt that they were very attentive. 
Presently they began to talk about aunts, and then I told them about mine ; 
and about fathers and mothers, and then I told them about mine ; and then 
Mrs. Heep began to talk about fathers-in-law, and then I began to tell her 
about mine — but stopped, because my aunt had advised me to observe a 
silence on that subject. A tender young cork, however, would have had no 
more chance against a pair of corkscrews, or a tender young tooth against a 
pah* of dentists, or a little shuttlecock against two battledores, than I had 
against Uriah and Mrs. Heep. They did just what they liked with me ; and 
wormed things out of me that I had no desire to tell, with a certainty I 
blush to think of : the more especially as, in my juvenile frankness, I took 
some credit to myself for being so confidential, and felt that I was quite 
the patron of my two respectful entertainers. 

They were very fond of one another : that was certain. I take it that 
had its effect upon me, as a touch of nature; but the skill with which the 
one followed up whatever the other said, was a touch of art which I was 
still less proof against. When there was nothing more to be got out of 
me about myself (for on the Murdstone and Grinby life, and on my journey, 
I was dumb), they began about Mr. Wickfield and Agnes. Uriah threw 
the ball to Mrs. Heep, Mrs. Heep caught it and threw it back to Uriah, 
Uriah kept it up a little while, then sent it back to Mrs. Heep, and so 
they went on tossing it about until I had no idea who had got it, and was 
quite bewildered. The ball itself was always changing too. Now it was 
Mr. Wickfield, now Agnes, now the excellence of Mr. Wickfield, now my 
admiration of Agnes ; now the extent of Mr. Wickfield's business and 
resources, now our domestic life after dinner ; now, the wine that Mr. 
Wickfield took, the reason why he took it, and the pity that it was he took 
so much ; now one thing, now another, then everything at once ; and all 
the time, without appearing to speak very often, or to do anything but 
sometimes encourage them a little, for fear they should be overcome by 
their humility and the honor of my company, I found myself perpetually 
letting out something or other that I had no business to let out, and 
seeing the effect of it in the twinkling of Uriah's dinted nostrils. 

I had begun to be a little uncomfortable, and to wish myself well out of 
the visit, when a figure coming down the street passed the door — it 
stood open to air the room, which was warm, the weather being close for the 
time of year — came back again, looked in, and walked in, exclaiming 
loudly, " Copperfield ! Is it possible ! " 

It was Mr. Micawber ! It was Mr. Micawber, with his eye-glass, and 
his walking-stick, and his shirt-collar, and his genteel air, and the con- 
descending roll in his voice, all complete ! 

"My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, putting out his hand, 
" this is indeed a meeting which is calculated to impress the mind with, 
a sense of the instability and uncertainty of all human — in short, it is a 
most extraordinary meeting. Walking along the street, reflecting upon 
the probability of something turning up (of which I am at present rather 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



183 



sanguine), I find a young, but valued friend turn up, who is connected with 
the most eventful period of my life ; I may say, with the turning point of 
my existence. Copperfield, my dear fellow, how do you do ? " 

I cannot say — I really caimot say — that I was glad to see Mr. Micawber 
there ; but I was glad to see him too, and shook hands with him heartily, 
inquiring how Mrs. Micawber was. 

" Thank you," said Mr. Micawber, waving his hand as of old, and 
settling his chin in his shirt-collar. " She is tolerably convalescent. The 
twins no longer derive their sustenance from Nature's founts — in short,' * 
said Mr. Micawber, in one of his bursts of confidence, "they are weaned 
— and Mrs. Micawber is, at present, my travelling companion. She will 
be rejoiced, Copperfield, to renew her acquaintance with one who has proved 
himself in all respects a worthy minister at the sacred altar of friendship." 

I said I should be delighted to see her. 

" You are very good," said Mr. Micawber. 

Mr. Micawber then smiled, settled his chin again, and looked about him. 

" I have discovered my friend Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber gen- 
teelly, and without addressing himself particularly to any one, " not in 
solitude, but partaking of a social meal in company with a widow lady, 
and one who is apparently her offspring — in short," said Mr. Micawber, 
in another of his bursts of confidence, " her son. I shall esteem it an 
honor to be presented." 

I could do no less, under these circumstances, than make Mr. Micawber 
known to Uriah Heep and his mother ; which I accordingly did. As they 
abased themselves before him, Mr. Micawber took a seat, and waved his 
hand in his most courtly manner. 

" Any friend of my friend Copperfield's," said Mr. Micawber, " has a 
personal claim upon myself." 

" We are too umble, sir," said Mrs. Heep, " my son and me, to be the 
friends of Master Copperfield. He has been so good as take his tea with us, 
and we are thankful to him for his company ; also to you, sir, for your notice." 

" Ma'am," returned Mr. Micawber, with a bow, " you are very obliging: 
and what are you doing, Copperfield ? Still in the wine trade ? " 

I was excessively anxious to get Mr. Micawber away ; and replied, with 
my hat in my hand, and a very red face I have no doubt, that I was a 
pupil at Doctor Strong's. 

"A pupil?" said Mr. Micawber, raising his eyebrows. "I am ex- 
tremely happy to hear it. Although a mind like my friend Copperfield's " 
— to Uriah and Mrs. Heep — " does not require that cultivation which, with- 
out his knowledge of men and things, it would require, still it is a rich soil 
teeming with latent vegetation — in short," said Mr. Micawber, smiling, in 
another burst of confidence, "it is an intellect capable of getting up the 
classics to any extent." 

Uriah, with his long hands slowly twining over one another, made a 
ghastly writhe from the waist upwards, to express his concurrence in this 
estimation of me. 

" Shall we go and see Mrs. Micawber, sir ? " I said, to get Mr. Micawber 
away. 

" If you will do her that favor, Copperfield," replied Mr. Micawber, 
rising. " I have no scruple in saying, in the presence of our friends here, 
that I am a man who has, for some years, contended against the pressure 



184 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

of pecuniary difficulties," I knew he was certain to say something of this 
kind ; he always would be so boastful about his difficulties. " Sometimes 
I have risen superior to my difficulties. Sometimes my difficulties have — 
in short, have floored-me. There have been times when I have adminis- 
tered a succession of facers to them ; there have been times when they 
have been too many for me, and I have given in, and said to Mrs. Micawber 
in the words of Cato, ' Plato, thou reasonest well. It's all up now. I can 
show fight no more.' But at no time of my life," said Mr. Micawber, 
"have I enjoyed a higher degree of satisfaction than in pouring my griefs 
(if I may describe difficulties, chiefly arising out of warrants of attorney 
and promissory notes at two and four months, by that word) into the 
bosom of my friend Copperfield." 

Mr. Micawber closed this handsome tribute by saying, " Mr. Heep ! 
Good evening. Mrs. Heep ! Your servant," and then walking out with 
me in his most fashionable manner, making a good deal of noise on the 
pavement with his shoes, and humming a tune as we went. 

It was a little inn where Mr. Micawber put up, and he occupied a little 
room in it, partitioned off from the commercial room, and strongly 
flavored with tobacco smoke. I think it was over the kitchen, because 
a warm greasy smell appeared to come up through the chinks in the floor, 
and there was a flabby perspiration on the walls. I know it was near the 
bar, on account of the smell of spirits and gingling of glasses. Here, recum- 
bent on a small sofa, underneath a picture of a race-horse, with her head 
close to the fire, and her feet pushing the mustard off the dumb-waiter at 
the other end of the room, was Mrs. Micawber, to whom Mr. Micawber 
entered first, saying, " My dear, allow me to introduce to you a pupil of 
Doctor Strong's." 

I noticed, by-the-by, that although Mr. Micawber was just as much 
confused as ever about my age and standing, he always remembered, as a 
genteel thing, that I was a pupil of Doctor Strong's. 

Mrs. Micawber was amazed, but very glad to see me. I was very glad 
to see her too, and after an affectionate greeting on both sides, sat down 
on the small sofa near her. 

" My dear," said Mr. Micawber, "if you will mention to Copperfield 
what our present position is, which I have no doubt he will like to know, I 
will go and look at the paper the while, and see whether any thing turns 
up among the advertisements." 

" I thought you were at Plymouth, ma'am," I said to Mrs. Micawber, as 
he went out. 

" My dear Master Copperfield," she replied, " we went to Plymouth." 

" To be on the spot," I hinted. 

" Just so," said Mrs. Micawber. " To be on the spot. But, the truth 
is, talent is not wanted in the Custom House. The local influence of my 
family was quite unavailing to obtain any employment in that department, 
for a man of Mr. Micawber's abilities. They would rather not have a man 
of Mr. Micawber's abilities. He would only show the deficiency of the 
others. Apart from which," said Mrs. Micawber, " I will not disguise 
from you, my dear Master Copperfield, that when that branch of my family 
which is settled in Plymouth became aware that Mr. Micawber was accom- 
panied by myself, and by little Wilkins and his sister, and by the twins, 
they did not receive him with that ardor which he might have expected, 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



185 



being so newly released from captivity. In fact," said Mrs. Micawber, 
lowering her voice, — " this is between ourselves — our reception was cool." 

"Dear me ! " I said. 

"Yes," said Mrs. Micawber. "It is truly painful to contemplate 
mankind in such an aspect, Master Copperfield, but our reception was, 
decidedly, cool. There is no doubt about it. In fact, that branch of my 
family which is settled in Plymouth became quite personal to Mr. Micawber, 
before we had been there a week." 

I said, and thought, that they ought to be ashamed of themselves. 

" Still, so it was," continued Mrs. Micawber. " Under such circum- 
stances, what could a man of Mr. Micawber's spirit do ? But one obvious 
course was left. To borrow, of that branch of my family, the money to 
return to London, and to return at any sacrifice." 

" Then you all came back again, ma'am? " I said. 

" We all came back again," replied Mrs. Micawber. " Since then, I 
have consulted other branches of my family on the course which it is most 
expedient for Mr. Micawber to take — for I maintain that he must take some 
course, Master Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, argumentatively. " It is 
clear that a family of six, not including a domestic, cannot live upon air." 

" Certainly, ma'am," said I. 

" The opinion of those other branches of myfamily," pursued Mrs. Micaw- 
ber, " is, that Mr. Micawber should immediately turn his attention to coals." 

"To what, ma'am?" 

" To coals," said Mrs. Micawber. " To the coal trade. Mr. Micawber 
was induced to think, on inquiry, that there might be an opening for a man 
of his talent in the Medway Coal Trade. Then, as Mr. Micawber very pro- 
perly said, the first step to be taken clearly was, to come and see the Medway. 
.Which we came and saw. I say ( we,' Master Copperfield ; for I never will," 
said Mrs. Micawber with emotion, " I never will desert Mr. Micawber." 

I murmured my admiration and approbation. 

"We came," repeated Mrs. Micawber, "and saw the Medway. My 
opinion of the coal trade on that river, is, that it may require talent, but 
that it certainly requires capital. Talent, Mr. Micawber has ; capital, 
Mr. Micawber has not. We saw, I think, the greater part of the Medway; 
and that is my individual conclusion. Being so near here, Mr. Micawber 
was of opinion that it would be rash not to come on, and see the Cathedral. 
Firstly, on account of its being so well worth seeing, and our never having 
seen it ; and secondly, on account of the great probability of something 
turning up in a cathedral town. We have been here," said Mrs. Micawber, 
" three days. Nothing has, as yet, turned up ; and it may not surprise 
you, my dear Master Copperfield, so much as it would a stranger, to know 
that we are at present waiting for a remittance from London, to discharge 
our pecuniary obligations at this hotel. Until the arrival of that remit- 
tance," said Mrs. Micawber, with much feeling, " I am cut off from my home (I 
allude to lodgings inPentonville), from my boy and girl, and from my twins." 

I felt the utmost sympathy for Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in this anxious 
extremity, and said as much to Mr. Micawber, who now returned : adding 
that I only wished I had money enough, to lend them the amount they 
needed. Mr. Micawber's answer expressed the disturbance of his mind. 
He said, shaking hands with me, " Copperfield, you are a true friend ; 
but when the worst comes to the worst, no man is without a friend 



186 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

who is possessed of shaving materials." At this dreadful hint Mrs. 
Micawber threw her arms round Mr. Micawber's neck and entreated him 
to be calm. He wept ; but so far recovered, almost immediately, as to 
ring the bell for the waiter, and bespeak a hot kidney pudding and a plate 
of shrimps for breakfast in the morning. 

When I took my leave of them, they both pressed me so much to come 
and dine before they went away, that I could not refuse. But, as I knew 
I could not come next day, when I should have a good deal to prepare in the 
evening, Mr. Micawber arranged that he would call at Doctor Strong's in 
the course of the morning (having a presentiment that the remittance 
would arrive by that post), and propose the day after, if it would suit me 
better. Accordingly I was called out of school next forenoon, and found 
Mr. Micawber in the parlor ; who had called to say that the dinner would 
take place as proposed. When I asked him if the remittance had come, 
he pressed my hand and departed. 

As I was looking out of window that same evening, it surprised me, and 
made me rather uneasy, to see Mr. Micawber and Uriah Heep walk past, 
arm in arm : Uriah humbly sensible of the honor that was done him, and 
Mi\ Micawber taking a bland delight in extending his patronage to Uriah. 
But I was still more surprised, when I went to the little hotel next day at 
the appointed dinner hour, which was four o'clock, to find, from what Mr. 
Micawber said, that he had gone home with Uriah, and had drunk brandy- 
and-water at Mrs. Heep's. 

" And I '11 tell you what, my dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, 
" your friend Heep is a young fellow who might be attorney-general. If 
I had known that young man, at the period when my difficulties came to a 
crisis, all I can say is, that I believe my creditors would have been a great 
deal better managed than they were." 

I hardly understood how this could have been, seeing that Mr. Micawber 
had paid them nothing at all as it was ; but I did not like to ask. Neither 
did I like to say, that I hoped he had not been too communicative to Uriah ; 
or to inquire if they had talked much about me. I was afraid of hurting 
Mr. Micawber's feelings, or, at all events, Mrs. Micawber's, she being 
very sensitive ; but I was uncomfortable about it, too, and often thought 
about it afterwards. 

We had a beautiful little dinner. Quite an elegant dish of fish ; the 
kidney-end of a loin of veal, roasted ; fried sausage-meat ; a partridge, and 
a pudding. There was wine, and there was strong ale ; and after dinner 
Mrs. Micawber made us a bowl of hot punch with her own hands. 

Mr. Micawber was uncommonly convivial. I never saw him such good 
company. He made his face shine with the punch, so that it looked as if 
it had been varnished all over. He got cheerfully sentimental about the 
town, and proposed success to it ; observing, that Mrs. Micawber and 
himself had been made extremely snug and comfortable there, and that he 
never should forget the agreeable hours they had passed in Canterbury. 
He proposed me afterwards ; and he, and Mrs. Micawber, and I, took a 
review of our past acquaintance, in the course of which we sold the 
property all over again. Then I proposed Mrs. Micawber ; or, at least, 
said, modestly, " If you '11 allow me, Mrs. Micawber, I shall now have the 
pleasure of drinking your health, ma'am." On which Mr. Micawber delivered 
an eulogium on Mrs. Micawber's character, and said she had ever been his 






OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



187 



guide, philosopher, and friend, and that he would recommend me, when I 
came to a marrying time of life, to marry such another woman, if such 
another woman could be found. 

As the punch disappeared, Mr. Micawber became still more friendly and 
convivial. Mrs. Micawber's spirits becoming elevated, too, we sang " Auld 
Lang Syne." When we came to "Here's a band, my trusty frere," we all 
joined hands round the table ; and when we declared we would " take a 
right gude Willie Waught," and hadn't the least idea what it meant, we 
were really affected. 

In a word, I never saw any body so thoroughly jovial as Mr. Micawber 
was, down to the very last moment of the evening, when I took a hearty 
farewell of himself and his amiable wife. Consequently, I was not prepared, 
at seven o'clock next morning, to receive the following communication, 
dated half-past nine in the evening; a quarter of an hour after I had left him. 

"My deae Young Friend, 

" The die is cast — all is over. Hiding the ravages of care with 
a sickly mask of mirth, I have not informed you, this evening, that there is 
no hope of the remittance ! Under these circumstances, alike humiliating 
to endure, humiliating to contemplate, and humiliating to relate, I have 
discharged the pecuniary liability contracted at this establishment, by 
giving a note of hand, made payable fourteen days after date, at my 
residence, Pentonville, London. When it becomes due, it will not be taken 
up. The result is destruction. The bolt is impending, and the tree must fall. 

" Let the wretched man who now addresses you, my dear Copperfield, 
be a beacon to you through life. He writes with that intention, and in 
that hope. If he could think himself of so much use, one gleam of day 
might, by possibility, penetrate into the cheerless dungeon of his 
remaining existence — though his longevity is, at present (to say the least 
of it), extremely problematical. 

" This is the last communication, my dear Copperfield, you will ever 
receive " From 

"The 

" Beggared Outcast, 

" WlLKINS MlCAWBEE." 

I was so shocked by the contents of this heart-rending letter, that I ran 
off directly towards the little hotel with the intention of taking it on my 
way to Doctor Strong's, and trying to soothe Mr. Micawber with a word 
of comfort. But, half-way there, I met the London coach with Mr. and 
Mrs. Micawber up behind; Mr. Micawber, the very picture of tranquil 
enjoyment, smiling at Mrs. Micawber's conversation, eating walnuts out 
of a paper bag, with a bottle sticking out of his breast pocket. As they 
did not see me, I thought it best, all things considered, not to see them. 
So, with a great weight taken off my mind, I turned into a by-street that 
was the nearest way to school, and felt, upon the whole, relieved that they 
were gone ; though I still liked them very much, nevertheless. 



188 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

A RETROSPECT. 

My school-days ! The silent gliding on of my existence — the unseen, 
unfelt progress of my life — from childhood up to youth ! Let me think, as 
I look back upon that flowing water, now a dry channel overgrown with 
leaves, whether there are any marks along its course, by which I can 
remember how it ran. 

A moment, and I occupy my place in the Cathedral, where we all went 
together, every Sunday morning, assembling first at school for that pur- 
pose. The earthy smell, the sunless air, the sensation of the world being 
shut out, the resounding of the organ through the black and white arched 
galleries and aisles, are wings that take me back, and hold me hovering 
above those days, in a half-sleeping and half-waking dream. - 

I am not the last boy in the school. I have risen, in a few months, over 
several heads. But the first boy seems to me a mighty creature, dwelling 
afar off, whose giddy height is unattainable. Agnes says " No," but I say 
" Yes," and tell her that she little thinks what stores of knowledge have been 
mastered by the wonderful Being, at whose place she thinks I, even I, weak 
aspirant, may arrive in time. He is not my private friend and public 
patron, as Steerforth was, but I hold him in a reverential respect. I chiefly 
wonder what he '11 be, when he leaves Doctor Strong's, and what mankind 
will do to maintain any place against him. 

But who is this that breaks upon me? This is Miss Shepherd, whom I love. 

Miss Shepherd is a boarder at the Misses Nettingalls' establishment. 
I adore Miss Shepherd. She is a little girl, in a spencer, with a round face 
and curly flaxen hair. The Misses Nettingalls' young ladies come to the 
Cathedral too. I cannot look upon my book, for I must look upon 
Miss Shepherd. When the choristers chaunt, I hear Miss Shepherd. In 
the service I mentally insert Miss Shepherd's name — I put her in 
among the Boyal Family. At home, in my own room, I am sometimes 
moved to cry out, " Oh, Miss Shepherd ! " in a transport of love. 

For some time, I am doubtful of Miss Shepherd's feelings, but, at 
length, Fate being propitious, we meet at the dancing-school. I have 
Miss Shepherd for my partner. I touch Miss .Shepherd's glove, and feel 
a thrill go up the right arm of my jacket, and come out at my hair. I say 
nothing tender to Miss Shepherd, but we understand each other. Miss 
Shepherd and myself live but to be united. 

Why do I secretly give Miss Shepherd twelve Brazil nuts for a present, 
I wonder ? They are not expressive of affection, they are difficult to pack 
into a parcel of any regular shape, they are hard to crack, even in room 
doors, and they are oily when cracked ; yet I feel that they are appropriate to 
Miss Shepherd. Soft, seedy biscuits, also, I bestow upon Miss Shepherd; 
and oranges innumerable. Once, I kiss Miss Shepherd in the cloak room. 
Ecstacy ! What are my agony and indignation next day, when I hear 
a flying rumour that the Misses Nettingall have stood Miss Shepherd in 
the stocks for turning in her toes ! 

Miss Shepherd being the one pervading theme and vision of my life, how 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



189 



do I ever come to break with her ? I can't conceive. And yet a coolness 
grows between Miss Shepherd and myself. Whispers reach me of Miss 
Shepherd having said she wished I wouldn't stare so, and having avowed 
a preference for Master Jones — for Jones ! a boy of no merit whatever ! 
The gulf between me and Miss Shepherd widens. At last, one day, I 
meet the Misses Nettingalls' establishment out walking. Miss Shepherd 
makes a face as she goes by, and laughs to her companion. All is over. 
The devotion of a life — it seems a life, it is all the same — is at an 
end ; Miss Shepherd comes out of the. morning service, and the Eoyal 
Family know her no more. 

I am higher in the school, and no one breaks my peace. I am not at 
all polite, now, to the Misses Nettingalls' young ladies, and shouldn't dote 
on any of them, if they were twice as many and twenty times as beautiful. 
I think the dancing-school a tiresome affair, and wonder why the girls 
can't dance by themselves and leave us alone. I am growing great in 
Latin verses, and neglect the laces of my boots. Doctor Strong refers to 
me in public as a promising young scholar. Mr. Dick is wild with joy, 
and my aunt remits me a guinea by the next post. 

The shade of a young butcher rises, like the apparition of an armed 
head in Macbeth. Who is this young butcher ? He is the terror of the 
youth of Canterbury. There is a vague belief abroad, that the beef suet 
with which he anoints his hair gives him unnatural strength, and that he 
is a match for a man. He is a broad-faced, bull-necked young butcher, 
with rough red cheeks, an ill-conditioned mind, and an injurious tongue. 
His main use of this tongue, is, to disparage Doctor Strong's young gentle- 
men. He says, publicly, that if they want anything he '11 give it 'em. 
He names individuals among them (myself included), whom he could 
undertake to settle with one hand, and the other tied behind him. He 
waylays the smaller boys to punch their unprotected heads, and calls 
challenges after me in the open streets. For these sufficient reasons I 
resolve to fight the butcher. 

It is a summer evening, down in a green hollow, at the corner of a 
wall. I meet the butcher by appointment. I am attended by a select 
body of our boys ; the butcher, by two other butchers, a young publican, 
and a sweep. The preliminaries are adjusted, and the butcher and myself 
stand face to face. In a moment the butcher lights ten thousand candles 
out of my left eyebrow. In another moment, I don't know where the wall 
is, or where I am, or where anybody is. I hardly know which is myself 
and which the butcher, we are always in such a tangle and tustle, knock- 
ing about upon the trodden grass. Sometimes I see the butcher, bloody 
but confident ; sometimes I see nothing, and sit gasping on my second's 
knee ; sometimes I go in at the butcher madly, and cut my knuckles open 
against his face, without appearing to discompose him at all. At last I 
awake, very queer about the head, as from a giddy sleep, and see the 
butcher walking off, congratulated by the two other butchers and the 
sweep and publican, and putting on his coat as he goes ; from which I 
augur, justly, that the victory is his. 

I am taken home in a sad plight, and I have beef-steaks put to my eyes, 
and am rubbed with vinegar and brandy, and find a great white puffy place 
bursting out on my upper lip, which swells immoderately. For three or 
four days I remain at home, a very ill-looking subject, with a green shade 



190 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

over my eyes ; and I should be very dull, but that Agues is a sister to me, 
and condoles with me, and reads to me, and makes the time light and 
happy. Agnes has my confidence completely, always ; I tell her all about 
the butcher, and the wrongs he has heaped upon me ; and she thinks I 
couldn't have done otherwise than fight the butcher, while she shrinks and 
trembles at my having fought him. 

Time has stolen on unobserved, for Adams is not the head-boy in the 
days that are come now, nor has he been this many and many a day. 
Adams has left the school so long, that when he comes back, on a visit to 
Doctor Strong, there are not many there, besides myself, who know him. 
Adams is going to be called to the bar almost directly, and is to be an 
advocate, and to wear a wig. I am surprised to find him a meeker man 
than I had thought, and less imposing in appearance. He has not stag- 
gered the world yet, either ; for it goes on (as well as I can make out) 
pretty much the same as if he had never joined it. 

A blank, through which the warriors of poetry and history march on 
in stately hosts that seem to have no end — and what comes next ! I 
am the head boy, now ; and look down on the line of boys below me, with a 
condescending interest in such of them as bring to my mind the boy I was 
myself, when I first came there. That little fellow seems to be no part of 
me ; I remember him as something left behind upon the road of life — as 
something I have passed, rather than have actually been — and almost think 
of him as of some one else. 

And the little girl I saw on that first day at Mr. "Wickfield's, where is 
she? Gone also. In her stead, the perfect likeness of the picture, a 
child likeness no more, moves about the house ; and Agnes — my sweet 
sister, as I call her in my thoughts, my counsellor and friend, the better 
angel of the lives of all who come within her calm, good, self-denying 
influence — is quite a woman. 

What other changes have come upon me, besides the changes in my 
growth and looks, and in the knowledge I have garnered all this while ? 
I wear a gold watch and chain, a ring upon my little finger, and a long- 
tailed coat; and I use a great deal of bear's grease — which, taken in 
conjunction with the ring, looks bad. Am I in love again ? I am. I 
worship the eldest Miss Larkins. 

The eldest Miss Larkins is not a little girl. She is a tall, dark, black- 
eyed, fine figure of a woman. The eldest Miss Larkins is not a chicken ; 
for the youngest Miss Larkins is not that, and the eldest must be three or 
four years older. Perhaps the eldest Miss Larkins may be about thirty. 
My passion for her is beyond all bounds. 

The eldest Miss Larkins knows officers. It is an awful thing to bear. I 
see them speaking to her in the street. I see them cross the way to meet 
her, when her bonnet (she has a bright taste in bonnets) is seen coming- 
down the pavement, accompanied by her sister's bonnet. She laughs and 
talks, and seems to like it. I spend a good deal of my own spare time in 
walking up and down to meet her. If I can bow to her once in the day (I 
know her to bow to, knowing Mi\ Larkins), I am happier. I deserve a bow 
now and then. The raging agonies I suffer on the night of the Race Ball, 
where I know the eldest Miss Larkins will be dancing with the military, ought 
to have some compensation, if there be even-handed justice in the world. 
My passion takes away my appetite, and makes me wear my newest 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 191 

silk neck-kerchief continually. I have no relief but in putting on niy best 
clothes, and having my boots cleaned over and over again. I seem, then, 
to be worthier of the eldest Miss Larkins. Everything that belongs to her, 
or is connected with her, is precious to me. Mr. Larkins (a gruff old 
gentleman with a double chin, and one of his eyes immoveable in his head) 
is fraught with interest to me. When I can't meet his daughter, I go 
where I am likely to meet him. To say " How do you do, Mr. Larkins ? 
Are the young ladies and all the family quite well ? " seems so pointed, 
that I blush. 

I think continually about my age. Say I am seventeen, and say that 
seventeen is young for the eldest Miss Larkins, what of that ? Besides, 
I shall be one-and-twenty in no time almost. I regularly take walks 
outside Mr. Larkins's house in the evening, though it cuts me to the 
heart to see the officers go in, or to hear them up in the drawing-room, where 
the eldest Miss Larkins plays the harp. I even walk, on two or three 
occasions, in a sickly, spoony manner, round and round the house after the 
family are gone to bed, wondering which is the eldest Miss Larkins's chamber 
(and pitching, I dare say now, on Mr. Larkins's instead) ; wishing that a 
fire would burst out ; that the assembled crowd would stand appalled ; that 
I, dashing through them with a ladder, might rear it against her window, 
save her in my arms, go back for something she had left behind, and 
perish in the flames. For I am generally disinterested in my love, and 
think I could be content to make a figure before Miss Larkins, and expire. 

— Generally, but not always. Sometimes brighter visions rise before 
me. When I dress (the occupation of two hours), for a great ball given at 
the Larkins's (the anticipation of three weeks), I indulge my fancy with 
pleasing images. I picture myself taking courage to make a declaration 
to Miss Larkins. I picture Miss Larkins sinking her head upon my 
shoulder, and saying, " Oh, Mr. Copperfield, can I believe my ears ! " I 
picture Mr. Larkins waiting on me next morning, and saying, " My dear 
Copperfield, my daughter has told me all. Youth is no objection. Here 
are twenty thousand pounds. Be happy ! " I picture my aunt relenting, 
and blessing us ; and Mr. Dick and Doctor Strong being present at the 
marriage ceremony. I am a sensible fellow, I believe- — T believe, on looking 
back, I mean — and modest I am sure ; but all this goes on notwithstanding. 

I repair to the enchanted house, where there are lights, chattering, 
music, flowers, officers (I am sorry to see)', and the eldest Miss Larkins, 
a blaze of beauty. She is dressed in blue, with blue flowers in her hair — 
forget-me-nots — as if she had any need to wear forget-me-nots ! It is the 
first really grown-up party that I have ever been invited to, and I am a 
little uncomfortable ; for I appear not to belong to anybody, and nobody 
appears to have anything to say to me, except Mr. Larkins, who asks me 
how my schoolfellows are, which he needn't do, as I have not come there 
to be insulted. But after I have stood in the doorway for some time, and 
feasted my eyes upon the goddess of my heart, she approaches me — she, 
the eldest Miss Larkins ! — and asks me, pleasantly, if I dance. 

I stammer, with a bow, " With you, Miss Larkins." 

" With no one else ? " enquires Miss Larkins. 

" I should have no pleasure in dancing with any one else." 

Miss Larkins laughs and blushes (or I think she blushes), and says, 
" Next time but one, I shall be very glad." 



192 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

The time arrives. "It is a waltz, I think," MissLarkins doubtfully observes, 
when I present myself. " Do you waltz ? If not, Captain Bailey — " 

But I do waltz (pretty well, too, as it happens), and I take Miss 
Larkins out. I take her sternly from the side of Captain Bailey. He is 
wretched, I have no doubt; but he is nothing to me. I have been 
wretched, too. I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins ! I don't know where, 
among whom, or how long. I only know that I swim about in space, with a 
blue angel, in a state of blissful delirium, until I find myself alone with her 
in a little room, resting on a sofa. She admires a flower (pink camelia 
japonica, price half-a-crown), in my button hole. I give it her, and say : 

" I ask an inestimable price for it, Miss Larkins." 

" Indeed ! What is that ? " returns Miss Larkins. 

" A flower of yours, that I may treasure it as a miser does gold." 

" You 're a bold boy," says Miss Larkins. " There." 

She gives it me, not displeased; and I put it to my lips, and then into 
my breast. Miss Larkins, laughing, draws her hand through my arm, 
and says, "Now take me back to Captain Bailey." 

I am lost in the recollection of this delicious interview, and the waltz, 
when she comes to me again, with a plain elderly gentleman, who has been 
playing whist all night, upon her arm, and says : 

" Oh ! here is my bold friend ! Mr. Chestle wants to know you, Mr. 
Copperfield." 

I feel at once that he is a friend of the family, and am much gratified. 

" I admire your taste, sir," says Mr. Chestle. " It does you credit. I 
suppose you don't take much interest in hops ; but I am a pretty large 
grower myself ; and if you ever like to come over to our neighbourhood — 
neighbourhood of Ashford — and take a run about our place, we shall be 
glad for you to stop as long as you like." 

I thank Mr. Chestle warmly, and shake hands. I think I am in a 
happy dream. I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins once again — she 
says I waltz so well ! I go home in a state of unspeakable bliss, and 
waltz in imagination, all night long, with my arm round the blue waist of 
my dear divinity. For some days afterwards, I am lost in rapturous 
reflections ; but I neither see her in the street, nor when I call. I am im- 
perfectly consoled for this disappointment by the sacred pledge, the 
perished flower. 

" Trotwood," says Agnes, one day after dinner. " Who do you think 
is going to be married to-morrow ? Some one you admire." 

" Not you, I suppose, Agnes ? " 

" Not me ! " raising her cheerful face from the music she is copying. 
" Do you hear him, Papa ? — The eldest Miss Larkins." 

" To — to Captain Bailey ? " I have just power enough to ask. 

" No ; to no Captain. To Mr. Chestle, a hop-grower." 

I am terribly dejected for about a week or two. I take off my ring, I wear 
my worst clothes, I use no bear's grease, and I frequently lament over the 
late Miss Larkins's faded flower. Being, by that time, rather tired of this 
kind of life, and having received new provocation from the butcher, I throw 
the flower away, go out with the butcher, and gloriously defeat him. 

This, and the resumption of my ring, as well as of the bear's grease in 
moderation, are the last marks I can discern, now, in my progress to 
seventeen. 



OF DAVID COPPEIIFIELD. 193 



CHAPTER XIX. 

I LOOK ABOUT ME, AND MAKE A DISCOVERY. 

I am doubtful whether I was at heart glad or sorry, when my school- 
days drew to an end, and the time came for my leaving Doctor Strong's. 
I had been very happy there, I had a great attachment for the Doctor, and 
I was eminent and distinguished in that little world. For these reasons 
I was sorry to go ; but for other reasons, unsubstantial enough, I was 
glad. Misty ideas of being a young man at my own disposal, of the 
importance attaching to a young man at his own disposal, of the wonder- 
ful things to be seen and done by that magnificent animal, and the 
wonderful effects he could not fail to make upon society, lured me away. 
So powerful were these visionary considerations in my boyish mind, that I 
seem, according to my present way of thinking, to have left school without 
natural regret. The separation has not made the impression on me, that 
other separations have. I try in vain to recal how I felt about it, and what 
its circumstances were ; but it is not momentous in my recollection. I sup- 
pose the opening prospect confused me. I know that my juvenile experiences 
went for little or nothing then ; and that life was more like a great fairy 
story, which I was just about to begin to read, than anything else. 

My aunt and I had held many grave deliberations on the calling to 
which I should be devoted. For a year or more I had endeavoured to find 
a satisfactory answer to her often-repeated question, "What I would like 
to be ? " But I had no particular liking, that I could discover, for anything. 
If I could have been inspired with a knowledge of the science of navigation, 
taken the command of a fast-sailing expedition, and gone round the world 
on a triumphant voyage of discovery, I think I might have considered myself 
completely suited. But, in the absence of any such miraculous provision, 
my desire was to apply myself to some pursuit that would not lie too 
heavily upon her purse ; and to do my duty in it, whatever it might be. 

Mr. Dick had regularly assisted at our councils, with a meditative and 
sage demeanour. He never made a suggestion but once ; and on that 
occasion (I don't know what put it in his head), he suddenly proposed 
that I should be " a Brazier." My aunt received this proposal so very 
ungraciously, that he never ventured on a second; but ever afterwards 
confined himself to looking watchfully at her for her suggestions, and 
rattling his money. 

"Trot, I tell you what, my dear," said my aunt, one morning in the 
Christmas season when I left school ; "as this knotty point is still unset- 
tled, and as we must not make a mistake in our decision if we can help it, 
I think we had better take a little breathing-time. In the meanwhile, you 
must try to look at it from a new point of view, and not as a schoolboy." 

" I will, aunt." 

" It has occurred to me," pursued my aunt, " that a little change, and a 
glimpse of life out of doors, may be useful, in helping you to know your 

o 



194 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

own mind, and form a cooler judgment. Suppose you were to take a little 
journey now. Suppose you were to go down into the old part of the 
country again, for instance, and see that — that out-of-the-way woman 
with the savagest of names," said my aunt, rubbing her nose, for she 
could never thoroughly forgive Peggotty for being so called. 

" Of all things in the world, aunt, I should like it best ! " 

" Well," said my aunt, " that 's lucky, for I should like it too. But 
it 's natural and rational that you should like it. And I am very well per- 
suaded that whatever you do, Trot, will always be natural and rational." 

" I hope so, aunt." 

"Your sister, Betsey Trotwood," said my aunt, "would have been as 
natural and rational a girl as ever breathed. You '11 be worthy of her, 
won't you ? " 

" I hope T shall be worthy of you, aunt. That will be enough for me." 

" It 's a mercy that poor dear baby of a mother of yours didn't live," 
said my aunt, looking at me approvingly, " or she 'd have been so vain of 
her boy by this time, that her soft little head would have been completely 
turned, if there was anything of it left to turn." (My aunt always excused 
any weakness of her own in my behalf, by transferring it in this way to 
my poor mother.) " Bless me, Trotwood, how you do remind me of her ! " 

" Pleasantly, I hope, aunt ? " said I. 

"He's as like her, Dick," said my aunt, emphatically, "he's as like 
her, as she was that afternoon, before she began to fret — bless my heart, 
he 's as like her, as he can look at me out of his two eyes ! " 

" Is he indeed ? " said Mr. Dick. 

" And he's like David, too," said my aunt, decisively. 

" He is very like David ! " said Mr. Dick. 

" But what I want you to be, Trot," resumed my aunt " — I don't 
mean physically, but morally ; you are very well physically — is, a firm 
fellow. A fine firm fellow, with a will of your own. With resolution," said 
my aunt, shaking her cap at me, and clenching her hand. "With deter- 
mination. With character, Trot — with strength of character that is not 
to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody, or by anything. 
That 's what I want you to be. That 's what your father and mother 
might both have been, Heaven knows, and been the better for it." 

I intimated that I hoped I should be what she described. 

" That you may begin, in a small way, to have a reliance upon yourself, 
and to act for yourself," said my aunt, " I shall send you upon your trip, 
alone. I did think, once, of Mr. Dick's going with you ; but, on second 
thoughts, I shall keep him to take care of me." 

Mr. Dick, for a moment, looked a little disappointed ; until the honor 
and dignity of having to take care of the most wonderful woman in the 
world, restored the sunshine to his face. 

" Besides," said my aunt, " there 's the Memorial — " 

" Oh, certainly," said Mr. Dick, in a hurry, " I intend, Trotwood, to 
get that done immediately — it really must be done immediately ! And 
then it will go in, you know — and then — ," said Mi'. Dick, after checking 
himself, and pausing a long time, " there '11 be a pretty kettle of fish ! " 

In pursuance of my aunt's kind scheme, I was shortly afterwards fitted out 
with a handsome purse of money, and a portmanteau, and tenderly dismissed 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 195 

upon my expedition. At parting, my aunt gave me some good advice, and a 
good many kisses ; and said that as her object was that I should look about 
me, and should think a little, she would recommend me to stay a few days 
in London, if I liked it, either on my way down into Suffolk, or in coming 
back. In a word, I was at liberty to do what I would, for three weeks or 
a month ; and no other conditions were imposed upon my freedom than 
the before-mentioned thinking and looking about me, and a pledge to write 
three times a week and faithfully report myself. 

I went to Canterbury first, that I might take leave of Agnes and Mr. 
Wickfield (my old room in whose house I had not yet relinquished), and 
also of the good Doctor. Agnes was very glad to see me, and told me 
that the house had not been like itself since I had left it. 

" I am sure I am not like myself when I am away," said I. " I seem 
to want my right hand, when I miss you. Though that 's not saying 
much ; for there 's no head in my right hand, and no heart. Every one 
who knows you, consults with you, and is guided by you, Agnes.' 5 

" Every one who knows me, spoils me, I believe," she answered, smiling. 

" No. It 's because you are like no one else. You are so good, and 
so sweet-tempered. You have such a gentle nature, and you are always 
right." 

"You talk," said Agnes, breaking into a pleasant laugh, as she sat at 
work, "as if I were the late Miss Larkins." 

" Come ! It 's not fair to abuse my confidence," I answered, redden- 
ing at the recollection of my blue enslaver. " But I shall confide in you, 
just the same, Agnes. I can never grow out of that. Whenever I fall 
into trouble, or fall in love, I shall always tell you, if you'll let me^-even 
when I come to fall in love in earnest." 

" Why, you have always been in earnest ! " said Agnes, laughing 
again. 

" Oh ! that was as a child, or a school-boy," said I, laughing in my 
turn, not without being a little shame-faced. " Times are altering now, 
and I suppose I shall be in a terrible state of earnestness one day or other. 
My wonder is, that you are not in earnest yourself, by this time, Agnes." 

Agnes laughed again, and shook her head. 

" Oh, I know you are not ! " said I, "because if you had been, you 
would have told me. Or at least " — for I saw a faint blush in her face, 
" you would have let me find it out for myself. But there is no one that 
I know of, who deserves to love you, Agnes. Some one of a nobler character, 
and more worthy altogether than any one I have ever seen here, must rise 
up, before I give my consent. In the time to come, I shall have a wary 
eye on all admirers; and shall exact a great deal from the successful 
one, I assure you." 

We had gone on, so far, in a mixture of confidential jest and earnest, 
that had long grown naturally out of our familiar relations, begun as mere 
children. But Agnes, now suddenly lifting up her eyes to mine, and 
speaking in a different manner, said : 

" Trotwood, there is something that I want to ask you, and that I may 
not have another opportunity of asking for a long time, perhaps — something 
I would ask, I think, of no one else. Have you observed any gradual 
alteration in Papa ? " 

o 2 



196 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

I had observed it, and had often wondered whether she had too. I 
must have shown as much, now, in my face ; for her eyes were in a moment 
cast down, and I saw tears in them. 

" Tell me what it is," she said, in a low voice. 

" I think — shall I be quite plain, Agnes, liking him so much ? " 

" Yes," she said. 

"I think he does himself no good by the habit that has increased upon 
him since I first came here. He is often very nervous — or I fancy so." 

"It is not fancy," said Agnes, shaking her head. 

" His hand trembles, his speech is not plain, and his eyes look wild. I 
have remarked that at those times, and when he is least like himself, he is 
most certain to be wanted on some business." 

"By Uriah," said Agnes. 

" Yes ; and the sense of being unfit for it, or of not having understood 
it, or of having shown his condition in spite of himself, seems to make 
him so uneasy, that next day he is worse, and next day worse, and so he 
becomes jaded and haggard. Do not be alarmed by what I say, Agnes, 
but in this state I saw him, only the other evening, lay down his head 
upon his desk, and shed tears like a child." 

Her hand passed softly before my lips while I was yet speaking, and in 
a moment she had met her father at the door of the room, and was hang- 
ing on his shoulder. The expression of her face, as they both looked 
towards me, I felt to be very touching. There was such deep fondness for 
him, and gratitude to him for all his love and care, in her beautiful look ; 
and there was such a fervent appeal to me to deal tenderly by him, even in 
my inmost thoughts, and to let no harsh construction find any place against 
him ; she was, at once, so proud of him and devoted to him, yet so compas- 
sionate and sorry, and so reliant upon me to be so, too ; that nothing she 
could have said would have expressed more to me, or moved me more. 

We were to drink tea at the Doctor's. We went there at the usual 
hour ; and round the study-fireside found the Doctor, and his young wife, 
and her mother. The Doctor, who made as much of my going away as if 
I were going to China, received me as an honored guest ; and called for a 
log of wood to be thrown on the fire, that he might see the face of his old 
pupil reddening in the blaze. 

" I shall not see many more new faces in Trotwood's stead, Wickfield," 
said the Doctor, warming his hands; "I am getting lazy, and want 
ease. I shall relinquish all my young people in another six months, and 
lead a quieter life." 

" You have said so, any time these ten years, Doctor," Mr. Wickfield 
answered. 

" But now I mean to do it," returned the Doctor. " My first master 
will succeed me — I am in earnest at last — so you '11 soon have to arrange 
our contracts, and to bind us firmly to them, like a couple of knaves." 

"And to take care," said Mr. Wickfield, "that you're not imposed 
on, eh ? — as you certainly would be, in any contract you should make for 
yourself. Well ! I am ready. There are worse tasks than that, in my 
calling." 

" I shall have nothing to think of then," said the Doctor, with a smile, 
" but my Dictionary ; and this other contract-bargain — Annie." 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 197 

As Mr. Wickfield glanced towards her, sitting at the tea-table by- 
Agnes, she seemed to me to avoid his look with such unwonted hesitation 
and timidity, that his attention became fixed upon her, as if something 
were suggested to his thoughts. 

" There is a post come in from India, I observe," he said, after a short 
silence. 

" By-the-by ! and letters from Mr. Jack Maldon ! " said the Doctor. 

"Indeed?' 5 

" Poor dear Jack ! " said Mrs. Markleham, shaking her head. " That 
trying climate ! — like living, they tell me, on a sand-heap, underneath 
a burning-glass ! He looked strong, but he wasn't. My dear Doctor, it 
was his spirit, not his constitution, that he ventured on so boldly. Annie, 
my dear, I am sure you must perfectly recollect that your cousin never 
was strong — not what can be called robust, you know," said Mrs. Markle- 
ham, with emphasis, and looking round upon us generally" — from the 
time when my daughter and himself were children together, and walking 
about, arm in arm, the livelong day." 

Annie, thus addressed, made no reply. 

" Do I gather from what you say, ma'am, that Mr. Maldon is ill ? " 
asked Mr. Wickfield. 

" 111 ! " replied the Old Soldier. " My dear sir, he is all sorts of things." 

" Except well ? " said Mr. Wickfield. 

" Except well, indeed ! " said the Old Soldier. " He has had dreadful 
strokes of the sun, no doubt, and jungle fevers and agues, and every kind 
of thing you can mention. As to his liver," said the Old Soldier resign- 
edly, " that, of course, he gave up altogether, when he first went out ! " 

•' Does he say all this ? " asked Mr. Wickfield. 

" Say? My dear sir," returned Mrs. Markleham, shaking her head and 
her fan, " you little know my poor Jack Maldon when you ask that 
question. Say? Not he. You might drag him at the heels of four 
wild horses first." 

" Mama ! " said Mrs. Strong. 

" Annie, my dear," returned her mother, " once for all, I must really 
beg that you will not interfere with me, unless it is to confirm what I say. 
You know as well as I do, that your cousin Maldon would be dragged at 
the heels of any number of wild horses — why should I confine myself to 
four! I won't confine myself to four — eight, sixteen, two-and-thirty, 
rather than say anything calculated to overturn the Doctor's plans." 

"Wickfield's plans," said the Doctor, stroking his face, and looking 
penitently at his adviser. " That is to say, our joint plans for him. 
I said myself, abroad or at home." 

" And I said," added Mr. Wickfield gravely, " abroad. I was the 
means of sending him abroad. It 's my responsibility." 

" Oh ! Responsibility ! " said the Old Soldier. " Every thing was done 
for the best, my dear Mr. Wickfield ; every thing was done for the kindest 
and best, we know. But if the dear fellow can't live there, he can't live 
there. And if he can't live there, he '11 die there, sooner than he' 11 over- 
turn the Doctor's plans. I know him," said the Old Soldier, fanning 
herself, in a sort of calm prophetic agony, " and I know he '11 die there, 
sooner than he '11 overturn the Doctor's plans." 



198 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Well, well, ma'am," said the Doctor, cheerfully, "I am not bigoted 
to my plans, and I can overturn them myself. I can substitute some 
other plans. If Mr. Jack Maldon comes home on account of ill health, he 
must not be allowed to go back, and we must endeavour to make some 
more suitable and fortunate provision for him in this country." 

Mrs. Markleham was so overcome by this generous speech — which, I 
need not say, she had not at all expected or led up to< — that she could only 
tell the Doctor it was like himself, and go several times through that 
operation of kissing the sticks of her fan, and then tapping his hand with 
it. After which she gently chid her daughter Annie, for not being more 
demonstrative when such kindnesses were showered, for her sake, on her 
old playfellow ; and entertained us with some particulars concerning other 
deserving members of her family, whom it was desirable to set on their 
deserving legs. 

All this time, her daughter Annie never once spoke, or lifted up her 
eyes. All this time, Mr. Wickfield had his glance upon her as she sat by 
his own daughter's side. It appeared to me that he never thought of 
being observed by any one ; but was so intent upon her, and upon his own 
thoughts in connexion with her, as to be quite absorbed. He now asked 
what Mr. Jack Maldon had actually written in reference to himself, and to 
whom he had written it ? 

" Why, here," said Mrs. Markleham, taking a letter from the chimney- 
piece above the Doctor's head, " the dear fellow says to the Doctor him- 
self — where is it ? Oh ! — ' I am sorry to inform you that my health is 
suffering severely, and that I fear I may be reduced to the necessity of 
returning home for a time, as the only hope of restoration.' That 's 
pretty plain, poor fellow! His only hope of restoration ! But Annie's 
letter is plainer still. Annie, show me that letter again." 

" Not now, mama," she pleaded in a low tone. 

'■ My dear, you absolutely are, on some subjects, one of the most 
ridiculous persons in the world," returned her mother, " and perhaps 
the most unnatural to the claims of your own family. We never should 
have heard of the letter at all, I believe, unless I had asked for it myself. 
Do you call that confidence, my love, towards Doctor Strong? lam 
surprised. You ought to know better." 

The letter was reluctantly produced ; and as I handed it to the old lady, 
I saw how the unwilling hand from which I took it, trembled. 

" Now let us see," said Mrs. Markleham, putting her glass to her eye, 
" where the passage is. * The remembrance of old times, my dearest Annie' 
— and so forth — it 's not there. ' The amiable old Proctor ' — who 's he ? 
Dear me, Annie, how illegibly your cousin Maldon writes, and how stupid 
lam! ' Doctor,' of course. Ah ! amiable indeed ! " Here she left off, 
to kiss her fan again, and shake it at the Doctor, who was looking at us in 
a state of placid satisfaction. " Now I have found it. ' You may not be 
surprised to hear, Annie ' " — no, to be sure, knowing that he never was 
really strong ; what did I say just now ? — ' that I have undergone so 
much in this distant place, as to have decided to leave it at all hazards ; 
on sick leave, if I can ; on total resignation, if that is not to be obtained. 
What I have endured, and do endure here, is insupportable.' And but 
for the promptitude of that best of creatures," said Mrs. Markleham, 



OF DAVID COPPERPIELD. 199 

telegraphing the Doctor as before, and refolding the letter, " it would be 
insupportable to me to think of." 

Mr. Wickfield said not one word, though the old lady looked to him as 
if for his commentary on this intelligence ; but sat severely silent, with his 
eyes fixed on the ground. Long after the subject was dismissed, and 
other topics occupied us, he remained so ; seldom raising his eyes, unless 
to rest them for a moment, with a thoughtful frown, upon the Doctor, or 
his wife, or both. 

The Doctor was very fond of music. Agnes sang with great sweetness 
and expression, and so did Mrs. Strong. They sang together, and played 
duets together, and we had quite a little concert. But I remarked two 
things : first, that though Annie soon recovered her composure, and was 
quite herself, there was a blank between her and Mr. Wickfield which sepa- 
rated them wholly from each other ; secondly, that Mr. Wickfield seemed 
to dislike the intimacy between her and Agnes, and to watch, it with 
uneasiness. And now, I must confess, the recollection of what I had seen 
on that night when Mr. Maldon went away, first began to return upon 
me with a meaning it had never had, and to trouble me. The innocent 
beauty of her face was not as innocent to me as it had been ; I mistrusted 
the natural grace and charm of her manner ; and when I looked at Agnes 
by her side, and thought how good and true Agnes was, suspicions arose 
within me that it was an ill-assorted friendship. 

She was so happy in it herself, however, and the other was so happy 
too, that they made the evening fly away as if it were but an hour. It 
closed in an incident which I well remember. They were taking leave of 
each other, and Agnes was going to embrace her and kiss her, when Mr. 
Wickfield stepped between them, as if by accident, and drew Agnes quickly 
away. Then I saw, as though all the intervening time had been can- 
celled, and I were still standing in the doorway on the night of the 
departure, the expression of that night in the face of Mrs. Strong, as it 
confronted his. 

I cannot say what an impression this made upon me, or how impossible 
I found it, when I thought of her afterwards, to separate her from this 
look, and remember her face in its innocent loveliness again. It haunted 
me when I got home. I seemed to have left the Doctor's roof with a dark 
cloud lowering on it. The reverence that I had for his grey head, was 
mingled with commiseration for his faith in those who were treacherous 
to him, and with resentment against those who injured him. The 
impending shadow of a great affliction, and a great disgrace that had no 
distinct form in it yet, fell like a stain upon the quiet place where I had 
worked and played as a boy, and did it a cruel wrong. I had no pleasure 
in thinking, any more, of the grave old broad-leaved aloe-trees which 
remained shut up in themselves a hundred years together, and of the trim 
smooth grass-plot, and the stone urns, and the Doctor's walk, and the 
congenial sound of the Cathedral bell hovering above them all. It was as 
if the tranquil sanctuary of my boyhood had been sacked before my face, 
and its peace and honor given to the winds. 

But morning brought with it my parting from the old house, which 
Agnes had filled with her influence ; and that occupied my mind suffi- 
ciently. I should be there again soon, no doubt ; I might sleep again— 



200 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

perhaps often — in my old room; but the days of my inhabiting there 
were gone, and the old time was past. I was heavier at heart when I 
packed up such of my books and clothes as still remained there to be sent 
to Dover, than I cared to show to Uriah Heep : who was so officious to help 
me, that I uncharitably thought him mighty glad that I was going. 

I got away from Agnes and her father, somehow, with an indifferent 
show of being very manly, and took my seat upon the box of the London 
coach. I was so softened and forgiving, going through the town, that 
I had half a mind to nod to my old enemy the butcher, and throw him 
five shillings to drink. But he looked such a very obdurate butcher as he 
stood scraping the great block in the shop, and moreover, his appearance 
was so little improved by the loss of a front tooth which I had knocked 
out, that I thought it best to make no advances. 

The main object on my mind, I remember, when we got fairly on the 
road, was to appear as old as possible to the coachman, and to speak 
extremely gruff. The latter point I achieved at great personal inconve- 
nience ; but I stuck to it, because I felt it was a grown-up sort of thing. 

"You are going through, sir?" said the coachman. 

" Yes, William," I said, condescendingly (I knew him) ; "I am going 
to London. I shall go down into Suffolk afterwards." 

" Shooting, sir?" said the coachman. 

He knew as well as I did that it was just as likely, at that time of year, 
I was going down there whaling ; but I felt complimented, too. 

" I don't know," I said, pretending to be undecided, " whether I shall 
take a shot or not." 

"Birds is got wery shy, I 'm told," said William. 

" So I understand," said I. 

" Is Suffolk your county, sir ? " asked William. 

" Yes," I said, with some importance, " Suffolk 's my county." 

" I 'm told the dumplings is uncommon fine down there," said 
William. 

I was not aware of it myself, but I felt it necessary to uphold the 
institutions of my county, and to evince a familiarity with them ; so I 
shook my head, as much as to say " I believe you ! " 

"And the Punches," said William. "There's cattle! A Suffolk 
Punch, when he 's a good un, is worth his weight in gold. Did you ever 
breed any Suffolk Punches yourself, sir?" 

" N — no," I said, " not exactly." 

" Here 's a gen'lm'n behind me, I '11 pound it," said William, " as has 
bred 'em by wholesale." 

The gentleman spoken of was a gentleman with a very unpromising 
squint, and a prominent chin, who had a tall white hat on with a narrow 
flat brim, and whose close-fitting drab trousers seemed to button all the way 
up outside his legs from his boots to his hips. His chin was cocked over 
the coachman's shoulder, so near to me, that his breath quite tickled the 
back of my head ; and as I looked round at him, he leered at the leaders 
with the eye with which he didn't squint, in a very knowing manner. 

"Ain't you?" said William. 

"Ain't I what?" asked the gentleman behind. 

" Bred them Suffolk Punches by wholesale ?" 







^^> -fau/s w; /sy/&' 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 201 

" I should think so," said the gentleman. " There ain't no sort of orse 
that I ain't bred, and no sort of dorg. Orses and dorgs is some men's 
fancy. They 're wittles and drink to me — lodging, wife, and children — 
reading, writing, and 'rithmetic — snuff, tobacker, and sleep." 

" That ain't a sort of man to see sitting behind a coach-box, is it 
though ? " said William in my ear, as he handled the reins. 

I construed this remark into an indication of a wish that he should 
have my place, so I blushingly offered to resign it. 

" Well, if you don't mind, sir," said William, " I think it would be 
more correct." 

I have always considered this as the first fall I had in life. When I 
booked my place at the coach-office, I had had "Box Seat" written 
against the entry, and had given the book-keeper half-a-crown. I was 
got up in a special great coat and shawl, expressly to do honor to that 
distinguished eminence ; had glorified myself upon it a good deal ; and had 
felt that I was a credit to the coach. And here, in the very first stage, I 
was supplanted by a shabby man with a squint, who had no other merit 
than smelling like a livery-stables, and being able to walk across me, more 
like a fly than a human being, while the horses were at a canter ! 

A distrust of myself, which has often beset me in life on small occasions, 
when it would have been better away, was assuredly not stopped in its 
growth by this little incident outside the Canterbury coach. It was in 
vain to take refuge in gruffuess of speech. I spoke from the pit of my 
stomach for the rest of the journey, but I felt completely extinguished, 
and dreadfully young. 

It was curious and interesting, nevertheless, to be sitting up there, behind 
four horses : well educated, well dressed, and with plenty of money in my 
pocket : and to look out for the places where I had slept on my weary 
journey. I had abundant occupation for my thoughts, in every conspicuous 
landmark on the road. When I looked down at the trampers whom we 
passed, and saw that well-remembered style of face turned up, I felt as if 
the tinker's blackened hand were in the bosom of my shirt again. When 
we clattered through the narrow street of Chatham, and I caught a 
glimpse, in passing, of the lane where the old monster lived who had 
bought my jacket, I stretched my neck eagerly to look for the place where 
I had sat, in the sun and in the shade, waiting for my money. When we 
came, at last, within a stage of London, and passed the veritable Salem 
House where Mr. Creakle had laid about him with a heavy hand, I would 
have given all I had, for lawful permission to get down and thrash him, 
and let all the boys out like so many caged sparrows. 

We went to the Golden Cross at Charing Cross, then a mouldy sort of 
establishment in a close neighbourhood. A waiter showed me into the 
coffee-room ; and a chambermaid introduced me to my small bedchamber, 
which smelt like a hackney-coach, and was shut up like a family vault. I 
was still painfully conscious of my youth, for nobody stood in any awe of 
me at all : the chambermaid being utterly indifferent to my opinions on 
any subject, and the waiter being familiar with me, and offering advice to 
my inexperience. 

" Well now," said the waiter, in a tone of confidence, " what would you 
like for dinner ? Young gentlemen likes poultry in general, have a fowl ! " 



202 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

I told him, as majestically as I could, that I wasn't in the humour for 
a fowl. 

" Ain't you ! " said the waiter. " Young gentlemen is generally tired of 
beef and mutton, have a weal cutlet ! " 

I assented to this proposal, in default of being able to suggest anything 
else. 

"Do you care for taters?" said the waiter, with an insinuating smile, 
and his head on one side. " Young gentlemen generally has been over- 
dosed with taters." 

I commanded him, in my deepest voice, to order a veal cutlet and pota- 
toes, and all things fitting ; and to inquire at the bar if there were any 
letters for Trotwood Copperfield, Esquire — which I knew there were not, 
and couldn't be, but thought it manly to appear to expect. 

He soon came back to say that there were none (at which I was much 
surprised), and began to lay the cloth for my dinner in a box by the fire. 
While he was so engaged, he asked me what I would take with it ; and on 
my replying " Half a pint of sherry," thought it a favourable opportunity, 
I am afraid, to extract that measure of wine from the stale leavings at the 
bottoms of several small decanters. I am of this opinion, because, while I 
was reading the newspaper, I observed him behind a low wooden par- 
tition, which was his private apartment, very busy pouring out of a 
number of those vessels into one, like a chemist and druggist making up 
a prescription. Yfhen the wine came, too, I thought it flat ; and it cer- 
tainly had more English crumbs in it, than were to be expected in a 
foreign wine in anything like a pure state ; but I was bashful enough to 
drink it, and say nothing. 

Being, then, in a pleasant frame of mind (from which I infer that 
poisoning is not always disagreeable in some stages of the process), I 
resolved to go to the play. It was Covent Garden Theatre that I chose ; 
and there, from the back of a centre box, I saw Julius Csesar and the new 
Pantomime. To have all those noble Romans alive before me, and 
walking in and out for my entertainment, instead of being the stern task- 
masters they had been at school, was a most novel and delightful effect. 
But the mingled reality and mystery of tbe whole show, the influence 
upon me of the poetry, the lights, the music, the company, the smooth 
stupendous changes of glittering and brilliant scenery, were so dazzling, 
and opened up such illimitable regions of delight, that when I came out 
into the rainy street, at twelve o'clock at night, I felt as if I had come 
from the clouds, where I had been leading a romantic life for ages, to 
a bawling, splashing, link-lighted, umbrella-struggling, hackney-coach- 
jostling, patten-clinking, muddy, miserable world. 

I had emerged by another door, and stood in the street for a little 
while, as if I really were a stranger upon earth : but the unceremonious 
pushing and hustling that I received, soon recalled me to myself, and put 
me in the road back to the hotel; whither I went, revolving the glorious 
vision all the way; and where, after some porter and oysters, I sat 
revolving it still, at past one o'clock, with my eyes on the coffee-room fire. 

I was so filled with the play, and with the past — for it was, in a manner, 
like a shining transparency, through which I saw my earlier life moving along 
— that I don't know when the figure of a handsome well-formed young 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 203 

man, dressed with a tasteful easy negligence which I have reason to remem- 
ber very well, became a real presence to me. But I recollect being 
conscious of his company without having noticed his coming in — and my 
still sitting, musing, over the coffee-room fire. 

At last I rose to go to bed, much to the relief of the sleepy waiter, who 
had got the fidgets in his legs, and was twisting them, and hitting 
them, and putting them through all kinds of contortions in his small 
pantry. In going towards the door, I passed the person who had come 
in, and saw him plainly. I turned directly, came back, and looked again. 
He did not know me, but I knew him in a moment. 

At another time I might have wanted the confidence or the decision to 
speak to him, and might have put it off until next day, and might have 
lost him. But, in the then condition of my mind, where the play was still 
running high, his former protection of me appeared so deserving of my 
gratitude, and my old love for him overflowed my breast so freshly and 
spontaneously, that I went up to him at once, with a fast-beating heart, 
and said : 

" Steerforth ! won't you speak to me ? " 

He looked at me — just as he used to look, sometimes — but I saw no 
recognition in his face. 

" You don't remember me, I am afraid," said I. 

" My God ! " he suddenly exclaimed. M It 's little Copperfield ! " 

I grasped him by both hands, and could not let them go. But for very 
shame, and the fear that it might displease him, I could have held him 
round the neck and cried. 

" I never, never, never was so glad ! My dear Steerforth, I am so 
overjoyed to see you ! " 

" And I am rejoiced to see you, too ! " he said, shaking my hands 
heartily. " Why, Copperfield, old boy, don't be overpowered ! " And yet 
he was glad, too, I thought, to see how the delight I had in meeting him 
affected me. 

I brushed away the tears that my utmost resolution had not been able 
to keep back, and I made a clumsy laugh of it, and we sat down together, 
side by side. 

"Why, how do you come to be here ? " said Steerforth, clapping me on 
the shoulder. 

" I came here by the Canterbury coach, to-day. I have been adopted 
by an aunt down in that part of the country, and have just finished my 
education there. How do you come to be here, Steerforth ? " 

" Well, I am what they call an Oxford man," he returned ; "that is to 
say, I get bored to death down there, periodically — and I am on my way 
now to my mother's. You 're a devilish amiable-looking fellow, Copper- 
field. Just what vou used to be, now I look at you ! Not altered in the 
least ! " 

"I knew you immediately," I said; "but you are more easily 
remembered." 

He laughed as he ran his hand through the clustering curls of his hair, 
and said gaily : 

"Yes, I am on an expedition of duty. My mother lives a little way 
out of town ; and the roads being in a beastly condition, and our house 



204 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

tedious enough, I remained here to-night instead of going on. I have 
not been in town half-a-dozen hours, and those I have been dozing and 
grumbling away at the play." 

"I have been at the play, too," said T. "At Covent Garden. What 
a delightful and magnificent entertainment, Steerforth ! " 

Steerfortli laughed heartily. 

— " My dear young Davy," he said, clapping me on the shoulder again, 
" you are a very Daisy. The daisy of the field, at sunrise, is not fresher 
than you are ! I have been at Covent Garden, too, and there never was 
a more miserable business. — Holloa, you sir ! " 

This was addressed to the waiter, who had been very attentive to our 
recognition, at a distance, and now came forward deferentially. 

"Where have you put my friend, Mr. Copperfield? " said Steerforth. 

" Beg your pardon, sir ? " 

" Where does he sleep ? What 's his number ? You know what I mean," 
said Steerforth. 

" Well, sir," said the waiter, with an apologetic air. "Mr. Copperfield 
is at present in forty-four, sir." 

"And what the devil do you mean," retorted Steerforth, "by putting 
Mr. Copperfield into a little loft over a stable ? " 

"Why, you see we wasn't aware, sir," returned the waiter, still 
apologetically, "as Mr. Copperfield was anyways particular. We can give 
Mr. Copperfield seventy-two, sir, if it would be preferred. Next you, sir." 

" Of course it would be preferred," said Steerforth. " And do it at 
once." 

The waiter immediately withdrew to make the exchange. Steerforth, 
very much amused at my having been put into forty-four, laughed again, 
and clapped me on the shoulder again, and invited me to breakfast with 
him next morning at ten o'clock — an invitation I was only too proud and 
happy to accept. It being now pretty late, we took our candles and went 
up-stairs, where we parted with friendly heartiness at his door, and where 
I found my new room a great improvement on my old one, it not being at 
all musty, and having an immense four-post bedstead in it, which was 
quite a little landed estate. Here, among pillows enough for six, I soon 
fell asleep in a blissful condition, and dreamed of ancient Eome, Steerforth, 
and friendship, until the early morning coaches, rumbling out of the archway 
underneath, made me dream of thunder and the gods. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 205 



CHAPTER XX. 

steerforth's home. 

When the chambermaid tapped at my door at eight o'clock, and informed 
me that my shaving-water was outside, I felt severely the having no occa- 
sion for it, and blushed in my bed. The suspicion that she laughed too, 
when she said it, preyed upon my mind all the time I was dressing ; and 
gave me, I was conscious, a sneaking and guilty air when I passed her on 
the staircase, as I was going down to breakfast. I was so sensitively 
aware, indeed, of being younger than I could have wished, that for some 
time I could not make up my mind to pass her at all, under the ignoble 
circumstances of the case ; but, hearing her there with a broom, stood 
peeping out of window at King Charles on horseback, surrounded by 
a maze of hackney-coaches and looking anything but regal in a drizzling 
rain and a dark-brown fog, until I was admonished by the waiter that the 
gentleman was waiting for me. 

It was not in the coffee-room that I found Steerforth expecting me, but 
in a snug private apartment, red-curtained and Turkey-carpeted, where 
the fire burnt bright, and a fine hot breakfast was set forth on a table 
covered with a clean cloth ; and a cheerful miniature of the room, the fire, 
the breakfast, Steerforth, and all, was shining in the little round mirror 
over the sideboard. I was rather bashful at first, Steerforth being so self- 
possessed, and elegant, and superior to me in all respects (age included) ; 
but his easy patronage soon put that to rights, and made me quite at 
home. I could not enough admire the change he had wrought in the 
Golden Cross ; or compare the dull forlorn state I had held yesterday, with 
this morning's comfort and this morning's entertainment. As to the 
waiter's familiarity, it was quenched as if it had never been. He attended 
on us, as I may say, in sackcloth and ashes. 

"" Now, Copperfield," said Steerforth, when we were alone, "I should 
like to hear what you are doing, and where you are going, and all about 
you. I feel as if you were my property." 

Glowing with pleasure to find that he had still this interest in me, I 
told him how my aunt had proposed the little expedition that I had before 
me, and whither it tended. 

"As you are in no hurry, then," said Steerforth, "come home with me 
to Highgate, and stay a day or two. You will be pleased with my 
mother — she is a little vain and prosy about me, but that you can forgive 
her — and she will be pleased with you." 

" I should like to be as sure of that, as you are kind enough to say you 
are," I answered, smiling. 

"Oh! " said Steerforth, "every one who likes me, has a claim on her 
that is sure to be acknowledged." 

" Then I think I shall be a favorite," said I. 

" Good ! " said Steerforth. " Come and prove it. We will go and see 



206 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

tlie lions for an hour or two — it 's something to have a fresh fellow like 
you to show them to, Copperfield — and then we '11 journey out to High- 
gate by the coach." 

I could hardly believe but that I was in a dream, and that I should 
wake presently in number forty-four, to the solitary box in the coffee- 
room and the familiar waiter again. After I had written to my aunt 
and told her of my fortunate meeting with my admired old school- 
fellow, and my acceptance of his invitation, we went out in a hackney- 
chariot, and saw a Panorama and some other sights, and took a walk 
through the Museum, where I could not help observing how much Steer- 
forth knew, on an infinite variety of subjects, and of how little account he 
seemed to make his knowledge. 

"You'll take a high degree at college, Steerforth," said I, "if you 
have not done so already ; and they will have good reason to be proud of 
you." 

"/take a degree!" cried Steerforth. "Not I! my dear Daisy — will 
you mind my calling you Daisy ? " 

"Not at all!" said I. 

" That 's a good fellow ! My dear Daisy," said Steerforth, laughing, " I 
have not the least desire or intention to distinguish myself in that way. I 
have done quite sufficient for my purpose. I find that I am heavy company 
enough for myself, as I am." 

" But the fame " I was beginning. 

" You romantic Daisy!" said Steerforth, laughing still more heartily; 
" why should I trouble myself, that a parcel of heavy-headed fellows may 
gape and hold up their hands? Let them do it at some other man. 
There 's fame for him, and he 's welcome to it." 

I was abashed at having made so great a mistake, and was glad to 
change the subject. Fortunately it was not difficult to do, for Steerforth 
could always pass from one subject to another with a carelessness and 
lightness that were his own. 

Lunch succeeded to our sight-seeing, and the short winter day wore 
away so fast, that it was dusk when the stage-coach stopped with us at an 
old brick house at Highgate on the summit of the hill. An elderly lady, 
though not very far advanced in years, with a proud carriage and a hand- 
some face, was in the doorway as we alighted ; and greeting Steerforth as 
" My dearest James," folded him in her arms. To this lady he presented 
me as his mother, and she gave me a stately welcome. 

It was a genteel old-fashioned house, very quiet and orderly. From the 
windows of my room I saw all London lying in the distance like a great 
vapour, with here and there some lights twinkling through it. I had only 
time, in dressing, to glance at the solid furniture, the framed pieces of 
work (done, I supposed, by Steerforth's mother when she was a girl), and 
some pictures in crayons of ladies with powdered hair and boddices, 
coming and going on the walls, as the newly-kindled fire crackled and 
sputtered, when I was called to dinner. 

There was a second lady in the dining-room, of a slight short figure, 
dark, and not agreeable to look at, but with some appearance of good 
looks too, who attracted my attention : perhaps because I had not expected 
to see her ; perhaps because I found myself sitting opposite to her; perhaps 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 207 

because of something really remarkable in her. She had black hair 
and eager black eyes, and was thin, and had a scar upon her lip. It was 
an old scar — I should rather call it, seam, for it was not discolored, and 
had healed years ago — which had once cut through her mouth, downward 
towards the chin, but was now barely visible across the table, except above 
and on her upper lip, the shape of which it had altered. I concluded in 
my own mind that she was about thirty years of age, and that she wished 
to be married. She was a little dilapidated — like a house — with having 
been so long to let ; yet had, as I have said, an appearance of good looks. 
Her thinness seemed to be the effect of some wasting fire within her, which 
found a vent in her gaunt eyes. 

She was introduced as Miss Dartle, and both Steerforth and his mother 
called her Eosa. I found that she lived there, and had been for a long 
time Mrs. Steerforth's companion. It appeared to me that she never said 
anything she wanted to say, outright ; but hinted it, and made a great deal 
more of it by this practice. For example, when Mrs. Steerforth observed, 
more in jest than earnest, that she feared her son led but a wild life at 
college, Miss Dartle put in thus : 

" Oh, really ? You know how ignorant I am, and that I only ask for 
information, but isn't it always so ? I thought that kind of life was on 
all hands understood to be — eh ? " 

" It is education for a very grave profession, if you mean that, Eosa," 
Mrs. Steerforth answered with some coldness. 

" Oh ! Yes ! That 's very true," returned Miss Dartle. " But isn't it, 
though ? — I want to be put right if I am wrong — isn't it really ? " 

" Eeally what ? " said Mrs. Steerforth. 

" Oh ! You mean it's not ! " returned Miss Dartle. " Well, I 'm very 
glad to hear it ! Now, I know what to do. That 's the advantage of 
asking. I shall never allow people to talk before me about wastefulness 
and profligacy, and so forth, in connection with that life, any more." 

" And you will be right," said Mrs. Steerforth. " My son's tutor is a 
conscientious gentleman ; and if I had not implicit reliance on my son, I 
should have reliance on him." 

" Should you ? " said Miss Dartle. " Dear me ! Conscientious, is he ? 
Eeally conscientious, now ? " 

" Yes, I am convinced of it," said Mrs. Steerforth. 

" How very nice ! " exclaimed Miss Dartle. " What a comfort ! Eeally 
conscientious ? Then he 's not — but of course he can't be, if he 's really 
conscientious. Well, I shall be quite happy in my opinion of him, from 
this time. You can't think how it elevates him in my opinion, to know 
for certain that he 's really conscientious ! " 

Her own views of every question, and her correction of everything 
that was said to which she was opposed, Miss Dartle insinuated in the 
same way : sometimes, I could not conceal from myself, with great power, 
though in contradiction even of Steerforth. An instance happened before 
dinner was done. Mrs. Steerforth speaking to me about my intention of 
going down into Suffolk, I said at hazard how glad I should be, if Steer- 
forth would only go there with me ; and explaining to him that I was 
going to see my old nurse, and Mr. Peggotty's family, I reminded him of 
the boatman whom he had seen at school. 



208 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Oh ! That bluff fellow ! " said Steerforth. " He had a son with him, 
hadn't he?" 

" No. That was his nephew," I replied ; " whom he adopted, though, 
as a son. He has a very pretty little niece too, whom he adopted as a 
daughter. In short, his house (or rather his boat, for he lives in one, on 
dry land) is full of people who are objects of his generosity and kindness. 
You would be delighted to see that household." 

" Should I? " said Steerforth. "Well, I think I should. I must see 
what can be done. It would be worth a journey — not to mention the 
pleasure of a journey with you, Daisy, — to see that sort of people together, 
and to make one of 'em." 

My heart leaped with a new hope of pleasure. But it was in reference 
to the tone in which he had spoken of " that sort of people," that Miss 
Dartle, whose sparkling eyes had been watchful of us, now broke in 
again. 

" Oh, but, really? Do tell me. Are they, though? " she said. 

" Are they what ? And are who what ? " said Steerforth. 

" That sort of people. — Are they really animals and clods, and beings 
of another order ? I want to know so much." 

" Why, there 's a pretty wide separation between them and us," said 
Steerforth, with indifference. " They are not to be expected to be as 
sensitive as we are. Their delicacy is not to be shocked, or hurt very 
easily. They are wonderfully virtuous, I dare say — some people contend 
for that, at least ; and I am sure I don't want to contradict them — but 
they have not very line natures, and they may be thankful that, like their 
coarse rough skins, they are not easily wounded." 

" Eeally ! " said Miss Dartle. " Well, I don't know, now, when I have 
been better pleased than to hear that. It 's so consoling ! It 's such a 
delight to know that, when they suffer, they don't feel ! Sometimes I have 
been quite uneasy for that sort of people ; but now I shall just dismiss the 
idea of them, altogether. Live and learn. I had my doubts, I confess, 
but now they 're cleared up. I didn't know, and now I do know; and that 
shows the advantage of asking — don't it ? " 

I believed that Steerforth had said what he had, in jest, or to draw Miss 
Dartle out ; and I expected him to say as much when she was gone, and 
we two were sitting before the fire. But he merely asked me what I thought 
of her. 

" She is very clever, is she not? " I asked. 

" Clever ! She brings everything to a grindstone," said Steerforth, 
" and sharpens it, as she has sharpened her own face and figure these 
years past. She has worn herself away by constant sharpening. She is 
all edge." 

"What a remarkable scar that is upon her lip ! " I said. 

Steerforth's face fell, and he paused a moment. 

" Why, the fact is," he returned, "— I did that." 

"By an unfortunate accident ! " 

"No. I was a young boy, and she exasperated me, and I threw a 
hammer at her. A promising young angel I must have been ! " 

I was deeply sorry to have touched on such a painful theme, but that 
was useless now. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 209 

" She has borne the mark ever since, as you see," said Steerforth ; " and 
she '11 bear it to her grave, if she ever rests in one — though I can hardly 
believe she will ever rest anywhere. She was the motherless child of. a 
sort of cousin of my father's. He died one day. My mother, who was 
then a widow, brought her here to be company to her. She has a couple 
of thousand pounds of her own, and saves the interest of it every year, to 
add to the principal. There 's the history of Miss Kosa Dartle for you." 

" And I have no doubt she loves you like a brother ? " said I. 

" Humph ! " retorted Steerforth, looking at the fire. " Some brothers 
are not loved over much ; and some love — but help yourself, Copperfield ! 
We '11 drink the daisies of the field, in compliment to you ; and the lilies of 
the valley that toil not, neither do they spin, in compliment to me — the 
more shame for me!" A moody smile that had overspread his features 
cleared off as he said this merrily, and he was his own frank, winning self 
again. 

I could not help glancing at the scar with a painful interest when we 
went in to tea. It was not long before I observed that it was the most 
susceptible part of her face, and that, when she turned pale, that mark 
altered first, and became a dull, lead-colored streak, lengthening out to its 
full extent, like a mark in invisible ink brought to the fire. There was a 
little altercation between her and Steerforth about a cast of the dice at 
backgammon — when I thought her, for one moment, in a storm of rage ; 
and then I saw it start forth like the old writing on the wall. 

It was no matter of wonder to me to find Mrs. Steerforth devoted to her 
son. She seemed to be able to speak or think about nothing else. She 
showed me his picture as an infant, in a locket, with some of his baby-hair 
in it ; she showed me his picture as he had been when I first knew him ; 
and she wore at her breast his picture as he was now. All the letters he 
had ever written to her, she kept in a cabinet near her own chair by the 
fire ; and she would have read me some of them, and I should have been 
very glad to hear them too, if he had not interposed, and coaxed her out 
of the design. 

" It was at Mr. Creakle's, my son tells me, that you first became ac- 
quainted," said Mrs. Steerforth, as she and I were talking at one table, 
while they played backgammon at another. "Indeed, I recollect his 
speaking, at that time, of a pupil younger than himself who had taken his 
fancy there ; but your name, as you may suppose, has not lived in my 
memory." 

" He was very generous and noble to me in those days, I assure you, 
ma'am," said I, " and I stood in need of such a friend. 1 should have 
been quite crushed without him." 

" He is always generous and noble," said Mrs. Steerforth, proudly. 

I subscribed to this with all my heart, God knows. She knew I did ; 
for the stateliness of her manner already abated towards me, except when 
she spoke in praise of him, and then her air was always lofty. 

" It was not a fit school generally for my son," said she; "far from it; 
but there were particular circumstances to be considered at the time, of 
more importance even than that selection. My son's high spirit made it 
desirable that he should be placed with some man who felt its superiority, 
and would be content to bow himself before it; and we found such a 
man there." 



210 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

I knew that, knowing the fellow. And yet I did not despise him the 
more for it, but thought it a redeeming quality in him — if lie could be 
allowed any grace for not resisting one so irresistible as Steerforth. 

" My son's great capacity was tempted on, there, by a feeling of volun- 
tary emulation and conscious pride," the fond lady went on to say. " He 
would have risen against all constraint ; but he found himself the monarch 
of the place, and he haughtily determined to be worthy of his station. It 
was like himself." 

I echoed, with all my heart and soid, that it was like himself. 

" So my son took, of his own will, and on no compulsion, to the course 
in which he can always, when it is his pleasure, outstrip every competitor," 
she pursued. " My son informs me, Mr. Copperfield, that you were quite 
devoted to him, and that when you met yesterday you made yourself 
known to him with tears of joy. I should be an affected woman if I made 
any pretence of being surprised by my son's inspiring such emotions ; but 
I cannot be indifferent to any one who is so sensible of his merit, and I 
am very glad to see you here, and can assure you that he feels an unusual 
friendship for you, and that you may rely on his protection." 

Miss Dartle plyed backgammon as eagerly as she did everything else. If 
I had seen her, first, at the board, I should have fancied that her figure 
had got thin, and her eyes had got large, over that pursuit, and no other 
in the world. But I am very much mistaken if she missed a word of this, 
or lost a look of mine as I received it with the utmost pleasure, and, 
honored by Mrs. Steerforth's confidence, felt older than I had done since 
I left Canterbury. 

When the evening was pretty far spent, and a tray of glasses and decanters 
came in, Steerforth promised, over the fire, that he would seriously think 
of going down into the country with me. There was no hurry, he said ; 
a week hence would do ; and his mother hospitably said the same. While 
we were talking, he more than once called me Daisy ; which brought Miss 
Dartle out again. 

"But really, Mr. Copperfield," she asked, "is it a nick-name? And 
why does he give it you ? Is it — eh ? — because he thinks you young 
and innocent ? I am so stupid in these things." 

I colored in replying that I believed it was. 

" Oh ! " said Miss Dartle. " Now I am glad to know that ! I ask 
for information, and I am glad to know it. He thinks you young and 
innocent ; and so you are his friend. Well, that 's quite delightful ! " 

She went to bed soon after this, and Mrs. Steerforth retired too. 
Steerforth and I, after lingering for half an hour over the fire, talking about 
Traddles and all the rest of them at old Salem House, went up-stairs 
together. Steerforth's room was next to mine, and I went in to look at it. 
It was a picture of comfort, full of easy chairs, cushions and footstools, worked 
by his mother's hand, and with no sort of thing omitted that could help 
to render it complete. Finally, her handsome features looked down on 
her darling from a portrait on the wall, as if it were even something to her 
that her likeness should watch him while he slept. 

I found the fire burning clear enough in my room by this time, and 
the curtains drawn before the windows and round the bed, giving it a 
very snug appearance. I sat down in a great chair upon the hearth 
to meditate on my happiness; and had enjoyed the contemplation of it for 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 211 

some time, when I found a likeness of Miss Dartle looking eagerly at me 
from above the chimney-piece. 

It was a startling likeness, and necessarily had a startling look. The 
painter hadn't made the scar, but I made it ; and there it was, coming 
and going : now confined to the upper lip as I had seen it at dinner, and 
now showing the whole extent of the wound inflicted by the hammer, as I 
had seen it when she was passionate. 

I wondered peevishly why they couldn't put her anywhere else instead 
of quartering her on me. To get rid of her, I undressed quickly, extin- 
guished my light, and went to bed. But, as I fell asleep, I could not 
forget that she was still there looking, " Is it really, though? I want to 
know ;" and when I awoke in the night, I found that I was uneasily 
asking all sorts of people in my dreams -whether it really was or not — 
without knowing what I meant. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

LITTLE EM'LY. 



There was a servant in that house, a man who, 1 understood, was 
usually with Steerforth, and had come into his service at the University, 
who was in appearance a pattern of respectability. I believe there never 
existed in his station a more respectable-looking man. He was taciturn, 
soft-footed, very quiet in his manner, deferential, observant, always at 
hand when wanted, and never near when not wanted ; but his great claim 
to consideration was his respectability. He had not a pliant face, he had 
rather a stiff neck, rather a tight smooth head with short hair clinging to 
it at the sides, a soft way of speaking, with a peculiar habit of whispering 
the letter S so distinctly, that he seemed to use it oftener than any other 
man; but every peculiarity that he had he made respectable. If his nose 
had been upside-down, he would have made that respectable. He sur- 
rounded himself with an atmosphere of respectability, and walked secure 
in it. It would have been next to impossible to suspect him of anything 
wrong, he was so thoroughly respectable. Nobody could have thought of 
putting him in a livery, he was so highly respectable. To have imposed 
any derogatory work upon him, would have been to inflict a wanton insult 
on the feelings of a most respectable man. And of this, I noticed the 
women-servants in the household were so intuitively conscious, that they 
always did such work themselves, and generally while he read the paper 
by the pantry fire. 

Such a self-contained man I never saw. But in that quality, as in 
every other he possessed, he only seemed to be the more respectable. Even 
the fact that no one knew his Christian name, seemed to form a part of 
his respectability. Nothing could be objected against his surname Littimer, 
by which he was known. Peter might have been hanged, or Tom trans- 
ported ; but Littimer was perfectly respectable. 

p 2 



212 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

It was occasioned, I suppose, by the reverend nature of respectability 
in the abstract, but I felt particularly young in this man's presence. How 
old he was himself I could not guess — and that again went to his credit 
on the same score ; for in the calmness of respectability he might have 
numbered fifty years as well as thirty. 

Littimer was in my room in the morning before I was up, to bring me 
that reproachful shaving- water, and to put out my clothes. When I 
undrew the curtains and looked out of bed, I saw him, in an equable 
temperature of respectability, unaffected by the east wind of January, and 
not even breathing frostily, standing my boots right and left in the first 
dancing position, and blowing specks of dust off my coat as he laid it down 
like a baby. 

I gave him good morning, and asked him what o'clock it was. He 
took out of his pocket the most respectable hunting-watch I ever saw, and 
preventing the spring with his thumb from opening far, looked in at the 
face as if he were consulting an oracular oyster, shut it up again, and said, 
if I pleased, it was halfpast eight. 

" Mr. Steerforth will be glad to hear how you have rested, sir." 
" Thank you," said I, " very well indeed. Is Mr. Steerforth quite well?" 
" Thank you, sir, Mr. Steerforth is tolerably well." Another of his 
characteristics, — no use of superlatives. A cool calm medium always. 

" Is there anything more I can have the honor of doing for you, sir? 
The warning-bell will ring at nine ; the family take breakfast at halfpast 
nine." 

" Nothing, I thank you." 

" I thank you, sir, if you please ;" and with that, and with a little inclina- 
tion of his head when he passed the bedside, as an apology for correcting 
me, he went out, shutting the door as delicately as if I had just fallen into 
a sweet sleep on which my life depended. 

Every morning we held exactly this conversation : never any more, and 
never any less : and yet, invariably, however far I might have been lifted 
out of myself over-night, and advanced towards maturer years, by Steer- 
forth's companionship, or Mrs. Steerforth's confidence, or Miss Dartle's 
conversation, in the presence of this most respectable man I became, as our 
smaller poets sing, " a boy again." 

He got horses for us ; and Steerforth, who knew every thing, gave me 
lessons in riding. He provided foils for us, and Steerforth gave me 
lessons in fencing — gloves, and I began, of the same master, to improve 
in boxing. It gave me no manner of concern that Steerforth should find 
me a novice in these sciences, but I never could bear to show my want of 
skill before the respectable Littimer. I had no reason to believe that 
Littimer understood such arts himself; he never led me to suppose any- 
thing of the kind, by so much as the vibration of one of his respectable 
eyelashes ; yet whenever he was by, while we were practising, I felt myself 
the greenest and most inexperienced of mortals. 

I am particular about this man, because he made a particular effect on 
me at that time, and because of what took place thereafter. 

The week passed away in a most delightful manner. It passed rapidly, 
as may be supposed, to one entranced as I was ; and yet it gave me so 
many occasions for knowing Steerforth better, and admiring him more in 
a thousand respects, that at its close I seemed to have been with him for 



OF DAVID COPPEREIELD. 213 

a mucli longer time. A clashing way he had of treating me like a play- 
thing, was more agreeable to me than any behaviour he could have 
adopted. It reminded me of our old acquaintance ; it seemed the natural 
sequel of it ; it showed me that he was unchanged ; it relieved me of any 
uneasiness I might have felt, in comparing my merits with his, and mea- 
suring my claims upon his friendship by any equal standard ; above all, it 
was a familiar, unrestrained, affectionate demeanor that he used towards 
no one else. As he had treated me at school differently from all the rest, 
I joyfully believed that he treated me in life unlike any other friend he 
had. I believed that I was nearer to his heart than any other friend, and 
my own heart warmed with attachment to him. 

He made up his mind to go with me into the country, and the day 
arrived for our departure. He had been doubtful at first whether to take 
Littimer or not, but decided to leave him at home. The respectable 
creature, satisfied with his lot whatever it was, arranged our portmanteaus 
on the little carriage that was to take us into London, as if they were 
intended to defy the shocks of ages ; and received my modestly proffered 
donation with perfect tranquillity. 

We bade adieu to Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle, with many thanks 
on my part, and much kindness on the devoted mother's. The last 
thing I saw was Littimer' s unruffled eye ; fraught, as I fancied, with the 
silent conviction that I was very young indeed. 

What I felt, in returning so auspiciously to the old familiar places, I 
shall not endeavour to describe. We went down by the Mail. I was so 
concerned, I recollect, even for the honor of Yarmouth, that when Steer- 
forth said, as we drove through its dark streets to the inn, that, as well as 
he could make out, it was a good, queer, out-of-the-way kind of hole, I 
was highly pleased. We went to bed on our arrival (I observed a pair of 
dirty shoes and gaiters in connexion with my old friend the Dolphin as 
we passed that door), and breakfasted late in the morning. Steerforth, 
who was in great spirits, had been strolling about the beach before I was 
up, and had made acquaintance, he said, with half the boatmen in the 
place. Moreover he had seen, in the distance, what he was sure must be 
the identical house of Mr. Peggotty, with smoke coming out of the 
chimney ; and had had a great mind, he told me, to walk in and swear he 
was myself grown out of knowledge. 

" When do you propose to introduce me there, Daisy ?" he said. " I am 
at your disposal. Make your own arrangements." 

" Why, I was thinking that this evening would be a good time, Steer- 
forth, when they are all sitting round the fire. I should like you to see it 
when it 's snug, it 's such a curious place." 

" So be it !" returned Steerforth. " This evening." 

" I shall not give them any notice that we are here, you know," said I, 
delighted. " We must take them by surprise." 

" Oh, of course ! It 's no fun," said Steerforth, " unless we take them 
by surprise. Let us see the natives in their aboriginal condition." 

" Though they are that sort of people that you mentioned," I returned. 

" Aha ! What ! you recollect my skirmishes with Kosa, do you ? " he 
exclaimed with a quick look. " Confound the girl, I am half afraid of her. 
She 's like a goblin to me. But never mind her. Now what are you 
going to do? You are going to see your nurse, ] suppose?" 



214 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Why, yes," I said, " I must see Peggotty first of all." 

" Well," replied Steerfortli, looking at his watch. " Suppose I deliver 
you up to be cried over for a couple of hours. Is that long enough?" 

I answered, laughing, that I thought Ave might get through it in that 
time, but that he must come also ; for he would find that his renown 
had preceded him, and that he was almost as great a personage as I was. 

" I '11 come anywhere you like," said Steerforth, " or do anything you 
like. Tell me where to come to ; and in two hours I '11 produce myself 
in any state you please, sentimental or comical." 

I gave him minute directions for finding the residence of Mr. Barkis, 
carrier to Blunderstone and elsewhere, and, on this understanding, went out 
alone. There was a sharp bracing air; the ground was dry; the sea 
was crisp and' clear ; the sun was diffusing abundance of light, if not much 
warmth ; and everything was fresh and lively. I was so fresh and lively 
myself, in the pleasure of being there, that I could have stopped the 
people in the streets and shaken hands with them. 

The streets looked small, of course. The streets that we have'only seen 
as children, always do, I believe, when we go back to them. But I had 
forgotten nothing in them, and found nothing changed, until I came to 
Mr. Omer's shop. Omer and Joram was now written up, where Omer 
used to be; but the inscription, Draper, Tailor, Haberdasher, 
Funeral Furnisher, &c, remained as it was. 

My footsteps seemed to tend so naturally to the shop-door, after I had 
read these words from over the way, that I went across the road and looked 
in. There was a pretty woman at the back of the shop, dancing a little 
child in her arms, while another little fellow clung to her apron. I had no 
difficulty in recognising either Minnie or Minnie's children. The glass- 
door of the parlor was not open ; but in the workshop across the yard I 
could faintly hear the old tune playing, as if it had never left off. 

"Is Mr. Omer at home?" said I, entering. " I should like to see him, 
for a moment, if he is." 

" Oh yes, sir, he is at home," said Minnie ; " this weather don't suit 
his asthma out of doors. Joe, call your grandfather ! " 

The little fellow, who was holding her apron, gave such a lusty shout, 
that the sound of it made him bashful, and he buried his face in her skirts, 
to her great admiration. I heard a heavy puffing and blowing coming 
towards us, and soon Mr. Omer, shorter-winded than of yore, but not 
much older-looking, stood before me. 

" Servant, sir," said Mr. Omer. " What can I do for you, sir? " 

" You can shake hands with me, Mr. Omer, if you please," said I, 
putting out my own. "You were veiy good-natured to me once, when I 
am afraid I didn't show that I thought so." 

"Was I though?" returned the old man. "I'm glad to hear it, 
but I don't remember when. Are you sure it was me ? " 

" Quite." 

" I think my memory has got as short as my breath," said Mr. Omer, 
looking at me and shaking his head ; "for I don't remember you." 

"Don't you remember your coming to the coach to meet me, and my 
having breakfast here, and our riding out to Blunderstone together: 
you, and I, and Mrs. Joram, and Mr. Joram too — who wasn't her 
husband then ? " 



OP DAVID COPPERPIELD. £15 

" Why, Lord bless my soul ! " exclaimed Mr. Omer, after being thrown 
by bis surprise into a fit of coughing, " you don't say so ! Minnie, my 
dear, you recollect ? Dear me, yes — the party was a lady, I think ? " 

" My mother," I rejoined. 

" To — be — sure," said Mr. Omer, touching my waistcoat with his 
forefinger, " and there was a little child too ! There was two parties. 
The little party was laid along with the other party. Over at Blunder- 
stone it was, of course. Dear me ! And how have you been since ? " 

Very well, I thanked him, as I hoped he had been too. 

" Oh ! nothing to grumble at, you know," said Mr. Omer. " I find 
my breath gets short, but it seldom gets longer as a man gets older. I 
take it as it comes, and make the most of it. That 's the best way, 
ain't it ? " 

Mr. Omer coughed again, in consequence of laughing, and was assisted 
out of his fit by his daughter, who now stood close beside us, dancing her 
smallest child on the counter. 

" Dear me ! " said Mr. Omer. " Yes, to be sine. Two parties ! 
Why, in that very ride, if you'll believe me, the day was named for my 
Minnie to marry Joram. 'Do name it, sir,' says Joram. 'Yes, do, 
father,' says Minnie. And now he 's come into the business. And look 
here ! The youngest ! " 

Minnie laughed, and stroked her banded hair upon her temples, as her 
father put one of his fat fingers into the hand of the child she was dancing 
on the counter. 

" Two parties, of course ! " said Mr. Omer, nodding his head retro- 
spectively. " Ex-actly so ! And Joram 's at work, at this minute, on a 
grey one with silver nails, not this measurement " — the measurement of 
the dancing child upon the counter — " by a good two inches. — Will you 
take something ? " 

I thanked him, but declined. 

" Let me see," said Mr. Omer. " Barkis 's the carrier's wife — Peg- 
gotty 's the boatman's sister — she had something to do with your family ? 
She was in service there, sure ? " 

My answering in the affirmative gave him great satisfaction. 

" I believe my breath will get long next, my memory 's getting so 
much so," said Mr. Omer. " Well, sir, we 've got a young relation of 
hers here, under articles to us, that has as elegant a taste in the dress- 
making business — I assure you I don't believe there 's a Duchess in 
England can touch her." 

" Not little Em'ly ? " said I, involuntarily. 

"Em'ly 's her name," said Mr. Omer, "and she's little too. But if 
you '11 believe me, she has such a face of her own that half the women in 
this town are mad against her." 

" Nonsense, father ! " cried Minnie. 

" My dear," said Mr. Omer, " I don't say it 's the case with you," 
winking at me, " but I say that half the women in Yarmouth — ah ! and 
in five mile round — are mad against that girL" 

"Then she should have kept to her own station in life, father," said 
Minnie, " and not have given them any hold to talk about her, and then 
they couldn't have done it." 

" Couldn't have done it, my dear ! " retorted Mr. Omer. " Couldn't 



'216 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

have done it ! Is that your knowledge of life ? What is there that any 
woman couldn't do, that she shouldn't do — especially on the subject of 
another woman's good looks ? " 

I really thought it was all over with Mr. Omer, after he had uttered 
this libellous pleasantry. He coughed to that extent, and his breath 
eluded all his attempts to recover it with that obstinacy, that I fully 
expected to see his head go down behind the counter, and his little black 
breeches, with the rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees, come 
quivering up in a last ineffectual struggle. At length, however, he got 
better, though he still panted hard, and was so exhausted that he was 
obliged to sit on the stool of the shop-desk. 

" You see," he said, wiping his head, and breathing with difficulty, 
" she hasn't taken much to any companions here ; she hasn't taken kindly 
to any particular acquaintances and friends, not to mention sweethearts. 
In consequence, an ill-natured story got about, that Em'ly wanted to be 
a lady. Now my opinion is, that it came into circulation principally on 
account of her sometimes saying, at the school, that if she was a lady she 
would like to do so and so for her uncle — don't you see ? — and buy him 
such and such fine things." 

" I assure you, Mr. Omer, she has said so to me," I returned eagerly, 
" when w r e were both children." 

Mr. Omer nodded his head and rubbed his chin. " Just so. Then out 
of a very little, she could dress herself, you see, better than most others 
could out of a deal, and that made things unpleasant. Moreover, she w r as 
rather what might be called wayward — I '11 go so far as to say what I 
should call wayward myself," said Mr. Omer, " — didn't know her own mind 
quite — a little spoiled — and couldn't, at first, exactly bind herself down. 
No more than that was ever said against her, Minnie ?" 

" No, father," said Mrs. Joram. " That's the worst, I believe." 

" So when she got a situation," said Mr. Omer, " to keep a fractious 
old lady company, they didn't very well agree, and she didn't stop. At 
last she came here, apprenticed for three years. Nearly two of 'em are 
over, and she has been as good a girl as ever was. Worth any six ! 
Minnie, is she worth any six, now ? " 

" Yes, father," replied Minnie. " Never say / detracted from her ! " 

" Very good," said Mr. Omer. " That 's right. And so, young gentle- 
man," he added, after a few moments' further rubbing of his chin, " that 
you may not consider me long-winded as well as short-breathed, I believe 
that 's all about it." 

As they had spoken in a subdued tone, while spealdng of Em'ly, I had 
no doubt that she was near. On my asking now, if that were not so, 
Mr. Omer nodded yes, and nodded towards the door of the parlor. My 
hurried inquiry if I might peep in, was answered with a free permission ; 
and, looking through the glass, I saw her sitting at her w 7 ork. I saw her, a 
most beautiful little creature, with the cloudless blue eyes, that had looked 
into my childish heart, turned laughingly upon another child of Minnie's 
who was playing near her ; with enough of wilfulness in her bright face 
to justify what I had heard ; with much of the old capricious coyness 
lurking in it ; but with nothing in her pretty looks, I am sure, but what 
was meant for goodness and for happiness, and what was on a good and 
happy course. 



OF DAVID COPPEUFIELD. 217 

The tune across the yard that seemed as if it never had left off — alas ! it 
was the tune that never does leave off — was beating, softly, all the while. 

"Wouldn't you like to step in," said Mr. Omer, "and speak to her? 
Walk in and speak to her, sir ! Make yourself at home ! " 

I was too bashful to do so then — I was afraid of confusing her, and I 
was no less afraid of confusing myself : but I informed myself of the hour 
at which she left of an evening, in order that our visit might be timed 
accordingly ; and taking leave of Mr. Omer, and his pretty daughter, and 
her little children, went away to my dear old Peggotty's. 

Here she was, in the tiled kitchen, cooking dinner ! The moment I 
knocked at the door she opened it, and asked me what I pleased to want. 
I looked at her with a smile, but she gave me no smile in return. I had 
never ceased to write to her, but it must have been seven years since we 
had met. 

" Is Mr. Barkis at home, ma'am? " I said, feigning to speak roughly to her. 

" He 's at home, sir," returned Peggotty, " but he 's bad abed with the 
rheumatics." 

" Don't he go over to Blunderstone now ? " I asked. 

" When he 's well, he do," she answered. 

" Do you ever go there, Mrs. Barkis ? " 

She looked at me more attentively, and I noticed a quick movement of 
her hands towards each other. 

" Because I want to ask a question about a house there, that they call 
the— what is it ? — the Rookery," said I. 

She took a step backward, and put out her hands in an undecided 
frightened way, as if to keep me off. 

" Peggotty ! " I cried to her. 

She cried, " My darling boy ! " and we both burst into tears, and were 
locked in one another's arms. 

What extravagancies she committed; what laughing and crying over 
me ; what pride she showed, what joy, what sorrow that she whose pride 
and joy I might have been, could never hold me in a fond embrace ; I have 
not the heart to tell. I was troubled with no misgiving that it was young 
in me to respond to her emotions. I had never laughed and cried in all 
my life, I dare say — not even to her — more freely than I did that morning. 

"Barkis will be so glad," said Peggotty, wiping her eyes with her 
apron, " that it '11 do him more good than pints of liniment. May I go 
and tell him you are here ? Will you come up and see him, my dear ? " 

Of course I would. But Peggotty could not get out of the room as 
easily as she meant to, for as often as she got to the door and looked 
round at me, she came back again to have another laugh and another cry 
upon my shoulder. At last, to make the matter easier, I went up-stairs 
with her ; and having waited outside for a minute, while she said a word of 
preparation to Mr. Barkis, presented myself before that invalid. 

He received me with absolute enthusiasm. He was too rheumatic to be 
shaken hands with, but he begged me to shake the tassel on the top of his 
nightcap, which I did most cordially. When I sat down by the side of 
the bed, he said that it did him a world of good to feel as if he was driving 
me on the Blunderstone road again. As he lay in bed, face upward, and so 
covered, with that exception, that he seemed to be nothing but a face — 
like a conventional cherubim, — he looked the queerest object I ever beheld. 



218 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

"What name was it, as I wrote up, in the cart, sir?" said Mr. Barkis, 
with a slow rheumatic smile. 

" Ah ! Mr. Barkis, we had some grave talks about that matter, hadn't we? " 

" I was willin' a long time, sir ? " said Mr. Barkis. 

" A long time," said I. 

"And I don't regret it," said Mr. Barkis. "Do you remember what 
you told me once, about her making all the apple parsties and doing all 
the cooking?" 

" Yes, very well," T returned. 

" It was as true," said Mr. Barkis, " as turnips is. It was as true," 
said Mr. Barkis, nodding his nightcap, which was his only means of 
emphasis, " as taxes is. And nothing 's truer than them." 

Mr. Barkis turned his eyes upon me, as if for my assent to this result 
of his reflections in bed ; and I gave it. 

" Nothing 's truer than them," repeated. Mr. Barkis; " a man as poor as 
I am finds that out in his mind when he 's laid up. I 'm a very poor 
man, sir." 

" I am sorry to hear it, Mr. Barkis." 

" A very poor man, indeed I am," said Mr. Barkis. 

Here his right hand came slowly and feebly from under the bedclothes, 
and with a purposeless uncertain grasp took hold of a stick which was 
loosely tied to the side of the bed. After some poking about with this 
instrument, in the course of which his face assumed a variety of distracted 
expressions, Mr. Barkis poked it against a box, an end of which had been 
visible to me all the time. Then his face became composed. 

" Old clothes," said Mr. Barkis. 

"Oh!" saidl. 

" I wish it was Money, sir," said Mr. Barkis. 

" I wish it was, indeed," said I. 

"But it ain't," said Mr. Barkis, opening both his eyes as wide as he 
possibly could. 

I expressed myself quite sure of that, and Mr. Barkis, turning his eyes 
more gently to his wife, said : 

" She 's the usefullest and best of women, C. P. Barkis. All the praise 
that any one can give to C. P. Barkis, she deserves, and more ! My dear, 
you'll get a dinner to-day, for company; something good to eat and 
drink, will you ? " 

I should have protested against this unnecessary demonstration in my 
honor, but that I saw Peggotty, on the opposite side of the bed, extremely 
anxious I should not. So I held my peace. 

" I have got a trifle of money somewhere about me, my dear," said Mr. 
Barkis, " but I 'm a little tired. If you and Mr. David will leave me for 
a short nap, I '11 try and find it when I wake." 

We left the room, in compliance with this request. When we got out- 
side the door, Peggotty informed me that Mr. Barkis, being now " a little 
nearer" than he used to be, always resorted to this same device before 
producing a single coin from his store ; and that he endured unheard-of 
agonies in crawling out of bed alone, and taking it from that unlucky box. 
In effect, we presently heard him uttering suppressed groans of the most 
dismal nature, as this magpie proceeding racked him in every joint ; but 
while Peggotty's eyes were full of compassion for him } she said his 



OF DAVID COPPEREIELD. 219 

generous impulse would do him good, and it was tetter not to check it. 
So lie groaned on, until he had got into bed again, suffering, I have no 
doubt, a martyrdom ; and then called us in, pretending to have just woke 
up from a refreshing sleep, and to produce a guinea from under his pillow. 
His satisfaction in which happy imposition on us, and in having preserved 
the impenetrable secret of the box, appeared to be a sufficient compensa- 
tion to him for all his tortures. 

I prepared Peggotty for Steerfortli's arrival, and it was not long before 
he came. I am persuaded she knew no difference between his having 
been a personal benefactor of hers, and a kind friend to me, and that she 
would have received him with the utmost gratitude and devotion in any 
case. But his easy, spirited, good humour ; his genial manner, his hand- 
some looks, his natural gift of adapting himself to whomsoever he pleased, 
and making direct, when he cared to do it, to the main point of interest 
in anybody's heart ; bound her to him wholly in five minutes. His 
manner to me, alone, would have won her. But, through, all these causes 
combined, I sincerely believe she had a kind of adoration for him before 
he left the house that night. 

He stayed there with me to dinner — if I were to say willingly, I should 
not half express how readily and gaily. He went into Mr. Barkis's room 
like light and air, brightening and refreshing it as if he were healthy 
weather. There was no noise, no effort, no consciousness, in anything 
lie did ; but in everything an indescribable lightness, a seeming impossi- 
bility of doing anything else, or doing anything better, which was so 
graceful, so natural, and agreeable, that it overcomes me, even now, in 
the remembrance. 

We made merry in the little parlor, where the Book of Martyrs, un- 
thumbed since my time, was laid out upon the desk as of old, and where 
I now turned over its terrific pictures, remembering the old sensations 
they had awakened, but not feeling them. When Peggotty spoke of what 
she called my room, and of its being ready for me at night, and of her 
hoping I would occupy it, before I could so much as look at Steerforth, 
hesitating, he was possessed of the whole case. 

"Of course," he said. "You'll sleep here, while we stay, and I shall 
sleep at the hotel." 

" But to bring you so far," I returned, " and to separate, seems bad 
companionship, Steerforth." 

" Why, in the name of Heaven, where do you naturally belong ! " he 
said. " What is c seems,' compared to that ! " It was settled at once. 

He maintained all his delightful qualities to the last, until we started 
forth, at eight o'clock, for Mr. Peggotty's boat. Indeed, they were more 
and more brightly exhibited as the hours went on ; for I thought even 
then, and I have no doubt now, that the consciousness of success in his 
determination to please, inspired him with a new delicacy of perception, 
and made it, subtle as it was, more easy to him. If any one had told 
me, then, that all this was a brilliant game, played for the excitement of 
the moment, for the employment of high spirits, in the thoughtless love of 
superiority, in a mere wasteful careless course of winning what was 
worthless to him, and next minute thrown away — I say, if any one had 
told me such a lie that night, I wonder in what manner of receiving it 
my indignation would have found a vent ! 



220 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Probably only in an increase, had that been possible, of the romantic 
feelings of fidelity and friendship with which I walked beside him, over 
the dark wintry sands, towards the old boat ; the wind sighing around 
us even more mournfully, than it had sighed and moaned upon the night 
when I first darkened Mr. Peggotty's door. 

" This is a wild kind of place, Steerforth, is it not ? " 

" Dismal enough in the dark," he said ; " and the sea roars as if it were 
hungry for us. Is that the boat, where I see a light yonder ? " 

" That 's the boat," said I. 

"And it's the same I saw this morning," he returned. " I came 
straight to it, by instinct, I suppose." 

We said no more as we approached the light, but made softly for the 
door. I laid my hand upon the latch ; and whispering Steerforth to keep 
close to me, went in. 

A murmur of voices had been audible on the outside, and, at the 
moment of our entrance, a clapping of hands : which latter noise, I was 
surprised to see, proceeded from the generally disconsolate Mrs. Gummidge. 
But Mrs. Gummidge was not the only person there, who was unusually 
excited. Mr. Peggotty, his face lighted up with uncommon satisfaction, and 
laughing with all his might, held his rough arms wide open, as if for little 
Em'ly to run into them ; Ham, with a mixed expression in his face of 
admiration, exultation, and a lumbering sort of bashfulness that sat upon 
him very well, held little Em'ly by the hand, as if he were presenting her 
to Mr. Peggotty ; little Em'ly herself, blushing and shy, but delighted with 
Mi*. Peggotty's delight, as her joyous eyes expressed, was stopped by our 
entrance (for she saw us first) in the very act of springing from Ham to 
nestle in Mr. Peggotty's embrace. In the first glimpse we had of them all, 
and at the moment of our passing from the dark cold night into the warm 
light room, this was the way in which they were all employed : Mrs. 
Gummidge in the back ground, clapping her hands like a madwoman. 

The little picture was so instantaneously dissolved by our going in, that 
one might have doubted whether it had ever been. I was in the midst of 
the astonished family, face to face with Mr. Peggotty, and holding out my 
hand to him, when Ham shouted : 

" Mas'r Davy ! It 's Mas'r Davy ! " 

In a moment we were all shaking hands with one another, and asking 
one another how we did, and telling one another how glad we were to 
meet, and all talking at once. Mr. Peggotty was so proud and over- 
joyed to see us, that he did not know what to say or do, but kept over and 
over again shaking hands with me, and then with Steerforth, and then 
with me, and then ruffling his shaggy hair all over his head, and laughing 
with such glee and triumph, that it was a treat to see him. 

" Why, that you two gent'lmen — gent'lmen growed — should come to 
this here roof to-night, of all nights in my life," said Mr. Peggotty, " is such 
a thing as never happened afore, I do rightly believe ! Em'ly, my darling, 
come here ! Come here, my little witch I There 's Mas'r Davy's friend, 
my dear ! There 's the gent'lman as you 've heerd on, Em'ly. He comes 
to see you, along with Mas'r Davy, on the brightest night of your uncle's 
life as ever was or will be, Gorm the t'other one, and horroar for it ! " 

After delivering this speech all in a breath, and with extraordinary 
animation and pleasure, Mr. Peggotty put one of his large hands raptur- 




I 



^ 



p 



I 






I 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 221 

ously on each side of his niece's face, and kissing it a dozen times, laid it 
with a gentle pride and love upon his broad chest, and patted it as if his 
hand had been a lady's. Then he let her go ; and as she ran into the 
little chamber where I used to sleep, looked round upon us, quite hot 
and out of breath with his uncommon satisfaction. 

" If you two gent'lmen — gent'lmen growed now, and such gent'lmen — " 
said Mr. Peggotty. 

" So th 'are, so th 'are ! " cried Ham. " Well said ! So th 'are. Mas'r 
Davy bor — gent'lmen growed — so th 'are ! " 

" If you two gent'lmen, gent'lmen growed," said Mr. Peggotty, " don't 
ex-cuse me for being in a state of mind, when you understand matters, 
I '11 arks your pardon. Em'ly, my dear ! — She knows I 'm a going to tell," 
here his delight broke out again, " and has made off. Would you be so 
good as look arter her, Mawther, for a minute ? " 

Mrs. Gummidge nodded and disappeared. 

" If this ain't," said Mr. Peggotty, sitting down among us by the fire, 
" the brightest night o' my life, I 'm a shellfish — biled too — and more I 
can't say. This here little Em'ly, sir," in a low voice to Steerforth, " — her 
as you see a blushing here just now — " 

Steerforth only nodded ; but with such a pleased expression of interest, 
and of participation in Mr. Peggotty's feelings, that the latter answered 
him as if he had spoken. 

"To be sure," said Mr. Peggotty. "That's her, and so she is. 
Thankee, sir." 

Ham nodded to me several times, as if he would have said so too. 

" This here little Em'ly of ours," said Mr. Peggotty, " has been, in our 
house, what I suppose (I 'm a ignorant man, but that 's my belief) no one 
but a little bright-eyed creetur can be in a house. She ain't my child ; I 
never had one ; but I couldn't love her more. You understand ! I 
couldn't do it ! " 

" I quite understand," said Steerforth. 

" I know you do, sir," returned Mr. Peggotty, " and thankee again. 
Mas'r Davy, he can remember what she was ; you may judge for your 
own self what she is ; but neither of you can't fully know what she has 
been, is, and will be, to my loving art. I am rough, sir," said Mr. Peg- 
gotty, " I am as rough as a Sea Porkypine ; but no one, unless, mayhap, 
it is a woman, can know, I think, what our little Em'ly is to me. And 
betwixt ourselves," sinking his voice lower yet, " that woman's name 
ain't Missis Gummidge neither, though she has a world of merits." 

Mr. Peggotty ruffled his hair again with both hands, as a further pre- 
paration for what he was going to say, and went on with a hand upon 
each of his knees. 

" There was a certain person as had know'd our Em'ly, from the time 
when her father was drownded; as had seen her constant; when a babby, 
when a young gal, when a woman. Not much of a person to look at, he 
wam't," said Mr. Peggotty, " something o' my own build: — rough — a 
good deal o' the sou'-wester in him — wery salt — but, on the whole, a 
honest sort of a chap, with his art in the right place." 

I thought I had never seen Ham grin to anything like the extent to 
which he sat grinning at us now. 

"What does this here blessed tarpaulin go and do," said Mr. Peggotty, 



222 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

with his face one high noon of enjoyment, " but he loses that there art 
of his to our little Em'ly. He toilers her about, he makes hisself a sort 
o' servant to her, he loses in a great measure his relish for his wittles, 
and in the long run he makes it clear to me wot 's amiss. Now I could 
wish myself, you see, that our little Em'ly was in a fair way of being 
married. I could wish to see her, at all ewents, under articles to a honest 
man as had a right to defend her. I don't know how long I may live, 
or how soon I may die ; but I know that if I was capsized, any night, in 
a gale of wind in Yarmouth Boads here, and was to see the town-lights 
shining for the last time over the rollers as I couldn't make no head 
against, I could go down quieter for thinking ' There 's a man ashore 
there, iron-true to my little Em'ly, God bless her, and no wrong can 
touch my Em'ly while so be as that man lives ! ' " 

Mr. Peggotty, in simple earnestness, waved his right arm, as if he 
were waving it at the town-lights for the last time, and then, exchanging 
a nod with Ham, whose eye he caught, proceeded as before. 

" Well ! I counsels him to speak to Em'ly. He 's big enough, but 
he 's bashfuller than a little un, and he don't like. So I speak. ' What ! 
Him!' says Em'ly. ' Him that I've know'd so intimate so many years, 
and like so much ! Oh, Uncle ! I never can have him. He 's such a 
good fellow ! ' I gives her a kiss, and I says no more to her than ' My 
dear, you're right to speak out, you're to choose for yourself, you're as 
free a3 a little bird.' Then I aways to him, and I says, ' I wish it could 
have been so, but it can't. But you can both be as you was, and wot I 
say to you is, Be as you was with her, like a man.' He says to me, a 
shaking of my hand, ' I will ! ' he says. And he was — honorable and 
manful — for two year going on, and we was just the same at home here as 
afore." 

Mr. Peggotty's face, which had varied in its expression with the 
various stages of his narrative, now resumed all its former triumphant 
delight, as he laid a hand upon my knee and a hand upon Steerforth's 
(previously wetting them both, for the greater emphasis of the action), 
and divided the following speech between us : 

" All of a sudden, one evening — as it might be to-night — comes little 
Em'ly from her work, and him with her ! There ain't so much in that, 
you '11 say. No, because he takes care on her, like a brother, arter dark, 
and indeed afore dark, and at all times. But this tarpaulin chap, he takes 
hold of her hand, and he cries out to me, joyful, ' Look here ! This is to 
be my little wife ! ' And she says, half bold and half shy, and half a 
laughing and half a crying, ' Yes, uncle ! If you please. 5 — If I please ! " 
cried Mr. Peggotty, rolling his head in an ecstacy at the idea ; " Lord, as 
if I should do anythink else ! — ' If you please, I am steadier now, and I 
have thought better of it, and I '11 be as good a little wife as I can to 
him, for he 's a dear, good fellow ! ' Then Missis Gummidge, she claps 
her hands like a play, and you come in. There ! the murder 's out ! " said 
Mr. Peggotty — " You come in ! It took place this here present hour ; and 
here 's the man that '11 marry her, the minute she 's out of her time." 

Ham staggered, as well he might, under the blow Mr. Peggotty dealt him 
in his unbounded joy, as a mark of confidence and friendship ; but feeling 
called upon to say something to us, he said, with much faltering and 
great difficulty : 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 223 

" She warn't no higher than you was, Mas'r Davy — when you first come 
■ — when I thought what she 'd grow up to be. I see her grow up — 
gent'lmen — like a flower. I 'dlay down my life for her — Mas'r Davy— 
Oh ! most content and cheerful ! She 's more to me — gent'lmen — than — 
she 's all to me that ever I can want, and more than ever I — than ever I 
could say. I — Hove her true. There ain't a gent'lman in all the land — 
nor yet sailing upon all the sea— that can love his lady more than I love her, 
though there 's many a common man — would say better — what he meant." 

I thought it affecting to see such a sturdy fellow as Ham was now, 
trembling in the strength of what he felt for the pretty little creature who 
had won his heart. I thought the simple confidence reposed in us by 
Mr. Peggotty and by himself, was, in itself, affecting. I was affected by 
the story altogether. How far my emotions were influenced by the recol- 
lections of my childhood, I don't know. Whether I had come there with 
any lingering fancy that I was still to love little Em'ly, I don't know. I know 
that I was filled with pleasure by all this ; but, at first, with an indescribably 
sensitive pleasure, that a very little would have changed to pain. 

Therefore, if it had depended upon me to touch the prevailing chord 
among them with any skill, I should have made a poor hand of it. But 
it depended upon Steerforth ; and he did it with such address, that in a 
few minutes we were all as easy and as happy as it was possible to be. 

" Mr. Peggotty," he said, " you are a thoroughly good fellow, and 
deserve to be as happy as you are to-night. My hand upon it ! Ham, 
1 give you joy, my boy. My hand upon that, too ! Daisy, stir the fire, and 
make it a brisk one ! and Mr. Peggotty, unless you can induce your 
gentle niece to come back (for whom I vacate this seat in the corner), I 
shall go. Any gap at your fireside on such a night — such a gap least 
of all — I wouldn't make, for the wealth of the Indies ! " 

So Mr. Peggotty went into my old room to fetch little Em'ly. At 
first little Em'ly didn't like to come, and then Plam went. Presently 
they brought her to the fireside, very much confused, and very shy, — but 
she soon became more assured when she found how gently and respect- 
fully Steerforth spoke to her ; how skilfully he avoided anything that would 
embarrass her ; how he talked to Mr. Peggotty of boats, and ships, and 
tides, and fish ; how he referred to me about the time when he had seen 
Mr. Peggotty at Salem House ; how delighted he was with the boat and 
all belonging to it ; how lightly and easily he carried on, until he brought 
us, by degrees, into a charmed circle, and we were all talking away 
without any reserve. 

Em'ly, indeed, said little all the evening ; but she looked, and listened, 
and her face got animated, and she was charming. Steerforth told a story 
of a dismal shipwreck (which arose out of his talk with Mr. Peggotty), as 
if he saw it all before him — and little Em'ly 's eyes were fastened on him 
all the time, as if she saw it too. He told us a merry adventure of his own, 
as a relief to that, with as much gaiety as if the narrative were as fresh to 
him as it was to us — and little Em'ly laughed until the boat rang with 
the musical sounds, and we all laughed (Steerforth too), in irresistible 
sympathy with what was so pleasant and light-hearted. He got Mr. 
Peggotty to sing, or rather to roar, " When the stormy winds do blow, 
do blow, do blow ; " and he sang a sailor's song himself, so pathetically 
and beautifully, that I could have almost fancied that the real wind 



224 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

creeping sorrowfully round the house, and murmuring low through our 
unbroken silence, was there to listen. 

As to Mrs. Grummidge, he roused that victim of despondency with a 
success never attained by any one else (so Mr. Peggotty informed me) since 
the decease of the old one. He left her so little leisure for being miserable 
that she said next day she thought she must have been bewitched. 

But he set up no monopoly of the general attention, or the conversa- 
tion. When little Em'ly grew more courageous, and talked (but still 
bashfully) across the fire to me, of our old wanderings upon the beach, to 
pick up shells and pebbles ; and when I asked her if she recollected how 
I used to be devoted to her ; and when we both laughed and reddened, 
casting these looks back on the pleasant old times, so unreal to look at now ; 
he was silent and attentive, and observed us thoughtfully. She sat, at 
this time, and all the evening, on the old locker in her old little corner 
by the fire — Ham beside her, where I used to sit. I could not satisfy 
myself whether it was in her own little tormenting way, or in a maidenly 
reserve before us, that she kept quite close to the wall, and away from 
him ; but I observed that she did so, all the evening. 

As I remember, it was almost midnight when we took our leave. We 
had had some biscuit and dried fish for supper, and Steerforth had pro- 
duced from his pocket a full flask of Hollands, which we men (I may say 
we men, now, without a blush) had emptied. We parted merrily ; and 
as they all stood crowded round the door to light us as far as they could 
upon our road, I saw the sweet blue eyes of little Em'ly peeping after 
us, from behind Ham, and heard her soft voice calling to us to be careful 
how we went. 

" A most engaging little Eeauty ! " said Steerforth, taking my arm. 
" Well ! It 's a quaint place, and they are quaint company, and it 's quite 
a new sensation to mix with them." 

" How fortunate we are, too," I returned, " to have arrived to witness 
their happiness in that intended marriage ! I never saw people so happy. 
How delightful to see it, and to be made the sharers in their honest 
joy, as we have been! " 

" That 's rather a chuckle-headed fellow for the girl; isn't he?" said 
Steerforth. 

He had been so hearty with him, and with them all, that I felt a shock 
in this unexpected and cold reply. But turning quickly upon him, and 
seeing a laugh in his eyes, I answered, much relieved : 

"Ah, Steerforth! It's well for you to joke about the poor! You 
may skirmish with Miss Dartle, or try to hide your sympathies in jest 
from me, but I know better. When I see how perfectly you understand 
them, how exquisitely you can enter into happiness like this plain 
fisherman's, or humour a love like my old nurse's, I know that there is 
not a joy or sorrow, not an emotion, of such people, that can be indifferent 
to you. ' And I admire and love you for it, Steerforth, twenty times the 
more ! " 

He stopped, and, looking in my face, said, " Daisy, I believe you are in 
earnest, and are good. I wish w T e all were!" Next moment he was 
gaily singing Mr. Peggotty's song, as we walked at a round pace back to 
Yarmouth. 



Or DAVID COPPERFIELD. 225 



CHAPTER XXII. 

SOME OLD SCENES, AND SOME NEW PEOPLE. 

Steerforth and I stayed for more than a fortnight in that part of the 
country. We were very much together, I need not say ; but occasionally 
we were asunder for some hours at a time. He was a good sailor, and I 
was but an indifferent one; and when he went out boating with Mr. 
Peggotty, which was a favorite amusement of his, I generally remained 
ashore. My occupation of Peggotty's spare-room put a constraint upon 
me, from which he was free : for, knowing how assiduously she attended 
on Mr. Barkis all day, I did not like to remain out late at night ; whereas 
Steerforth, lying at the Inn, had nothing to consult but his own humour. 
Thus it came about, that I heard of his making little treats for the fisher- 
men at Mr. Peggotty's house of call, " The Willing Mind," after I was in 
bed, and of his being afloat, wrapped in fisherman's clothes,whole moonlight 
nights, and coming back when the morning tide was at flood. By this 
time, however, I knew that his restless nature and bold spirits delighted 
to find a vent in rough toil and hard weather, as in any other means of 
excitement that presented itself freshly to him ; so none of his proceedings 
surprised me. 

Another cause of our being sometimes apart, was, that I had naturally 
an interest in going over to Blunderstone, and revisiting the old familiar 
scenes of my childhood ; while Steerforth, after being there once, had 
naturally no great interest in going there again. Hence, on three or four 
days that I can at once recal, we went our several ways after an early 
breakfast, and met again at a late dinner. I had no idea how he employed 
his time in the interval, beyond a general knowledge that he was very 
popular in the place, and had twenty means of actively diverting himself 
where another man might not have found one. 

Por my own part, my occupation in my solitary pilgrimages was to recal 
every yard of the old road as I went along it, and to haunt the old spots, 
of which I never tired. I haunted them, as my memory had often done, 
and lingered among them as my younger thoughts had lingered when I 
was far away. The grave beneath the tree, where both my parents lay — 
on which I had looked out, when it was my father's only, with such curious 
feelings of compassion, and by which I had stood, so desolate, when it was 
opened to receive my pretty mother and her baby— the grave which 
Peggotty's own faithful care had ever since kept neat, and made a garden 
of, I walked near, by the hour. It lay a little off the church-yard path, 
in a quiet corner, not so far removed but I could read the names upon the 
stone as I walked to and fro, startled by the sound of the church-bell when 
it struck the hour, for it was like a departed voice to me. My reflections 
at these times were always associated with the figure I was to make in 
life, and the distinguished things I was to do. My echoing footsteps went 
to no other tune, but were as constant to that as if I had come home to 
build my castles in the air at a living mother's side. 



226 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

There were great changes in my old home. The ragged nests, so long 
deserted by the rooks, were gone ; and the trees were lopped and topped 
out of their remembered shapes. The garden had run wild, and half the 
windows of the house were shut up. It was occupied, but only by a poor 
lunatic gentleman, and the people who took care of him. .He was always 
sitting at my little window, looking out into the 'church -yard; and I won- 
dered whether his rambling thoughts ever went upon any of the fancies 
that used to occupy mine, on the rosy mornings when I peeped out of that 
same little window in my night-clothes, and saw the sheep quietly feeding 
in the light of the rising sun. 

Our old neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Grayper, were gone to South America, 
and the rain had made its way through the roof of their empty house, and 
stained the outer walls. Mr. Chillip was married again to a tall, raw- 
boned, high-nosed wife ; and they had a weazen little baby, with a heavy 
head that it couldn't hold up, and two weak staring eyes, with which it 
seemed to be always wondering why it had ever been born. 

It was with a singular jumble of sadness and pleasure that I used to 
linger about my native place, until the reddening winter sun admonished 
me that it was time to start on my returning walk. But, when the place 
was left behind, and especially when Steerforth and I were happily seated 
over our dinner by a blazing fire, it was delicious to think of having been 
there. So it was, though in a softened degree, when I went to my neat 
room at night ; and, turning over the leaves of the crocodile-book (which was 
always there, upon a little table), remembered with a grateful heart how 
blest I was in having such a friend as Steerforth, such a friend as Peggotty, 
and such a substitute for what I had lost as my excellent and generous 
aunt. 

My nearest way to Yarmouth, in coming back from these long walks, 
was by a ferry. It landed me on the flat between the town and the sea, 
which I could make straight across, and so save myself a considerable circuit 
by the high road. Mr. Peggotty's house being on that waste-place, and 
not a hundred yards out of my track, I always looked in as I went by. 
Steerforth was pretty sure to be there expecting me, and we went on 
together through the frosty air and gathering fog towards the twinkling 
lights of the town. 

One dark evening, when I was later than usual — for I had, that day, 
been making my parting visit to Blunderstone, as we were now about to 
return home — I found him alone in Mr. Peggotty's house, sitting thought- 
fully before the fire. He was so intent upon his own reflections that he 
was quite unconscious of my approach. This, indeed, he might easily 
have been if he had been less absorbed, for footsteps fell noiselessly 
on the sandy ground outside; but even my entrance failed to rouse 
him. I was standing close to him, looking at him ; and still, with a heavy 
brow, he was lost in his meditations. 

He gave such a start when I put my hand upon his shoulder, that he 
made me start too. 

" You come upon me," he said, almost angrily, " like a reproachful 
ghost ! " 

" I was obliged to announce myself somehow," I replied. " Have 
I called you down from the stars ? " 

" No." he answered. " No." 



OF DAVID COPPEREIELD. 227 

" Up from anywhere, then ? " said I, taking my seat near him. 

" I was looking at the pictures in the fire," he returned. 

"But you are spoiling them for me," said I, as he stirred it quickly 
with a piece of burning wood, striking out of it a train of red-hot sparks 
that went careering up the little chimney, and roaring out into the air. 

" You would not have seen them," he returned. " I detest this mongrel 
time, neither day nor night. How late you are ! Where have you been ? " 

" I have been taking leave of my usual walk," said I. 

"And I have been sitting here," said Steerforth, glancing round the 
room, " thinking that all the people we found so glad on the night of our 
coming down, might — to judge from the present wasted air of the place — 
be dispersed, or dead, or come to I don't know what harm. David, I 
wish to God I had had a judicious father these last twenty years ! " 

" My dear Steerforth, what is the matter ? " 

" I wish with all my soul I had been better guided! " he exclaimed. 
" I wish with all my soul I could guide myself better ! " 

There was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed me. 
He was more unlike himself than I could have supposed possible. 

"It would be better to be this poor Peggotty, or his lout of a 
nephew," he said, getting up and leaning moodily against the chimney- 
piece, with his face towards the fire, " than to be myself, twenty times 
richer and twenty times wiser, and be the torment to myself that I have 
been, in this Devil's bark of a boat, within the last half-hour ! " 

I was so confounded by the alteration in him, that at first I could only 
observe him in silence, as he stood leaning his head upon his hand, and 
looking gloomily down at the fire. At length I begged him, with all the 
earnestness I felt, to tell me what had occurred to cross him so unusually, 
and to let me sympathise with him, if I could not hope to advise him. 
Before I had well concluded, he began to laugh — fretfully at first, but 
soon with returning gaiety. 

" Tut, it 's nothing, Daisy ! nothing ! " he replied. " I told you, at 
the inn in London, I am heavy company for myself, sometimes. I have 
been a nightmare to myself, just now — must have had one, I think. At 
odd dull times, nursery tales come up into the memory, unrecognised for 
what they are. I believe I have been confounding myself with the bad 
boy who 'didn't care,' and became food for lions — a grander kind of going 
to the dogs, I suppose. What old women call the horrors, have been 
creeping over me from head to foot. I have been afraid of myself." 

" You are afraid of nothing else, I think," said I. 

"Perhaps not, and yet may have enough to be afraid of too," he 
answered. " "Well ! So it goes by ! I am not about to be hipped again, 
David ; but I tell you, my good fellow, once more, that it would have 
been well for me (and for more than me) if I had had a steadfast and 
judicious father ! " 

His face was always full of expression, but I never saw it express such 
a dark kind of earnestness as when he said these words, with his glance 
bent on the fire. 

" So much for that ! " he said, making as if he tossed something light 
into the air, with his hand. 

" ' Why, being gone, I am a man again,' 

a 2 



228 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

like Macbeth. And now for dinner ! If I have not (Macbeth-like) broken 
up the feast with most admired disorder, Daisy." 

" But where are they all, I wonder ! " said I. 

" God knows," said Steerforth. " After strolling to the ferry looking 
for you, I strolled in here and found the place deserted. That set me 
thinking, and you found me thinking." 

The advent of Mrs. Gummidge with a basket, explained how the house 
had happened to be empty. She had hurried out to buy something that was 
needed, against Mr. Peggotty's return with the tide ; and had left the 
door open in the meanwhile, lest Ham and little Em'ly, with whom it was 
an early night, should come home while she was gone. Steerforth, after 
very much improving Mrs. Gummidge's spirits by a cheerful salutation, 
and a jocose embrace, took my arm, and hurried me away. 

He had improved his own spirits, no less than Mrs. Gummidge's, for 
they were again at their usual flow, and he was full of vivacious conversa- 
tion as we went along. 

" And so," he said, gaily, " we abandon this buccaneer life to-morrow, 
do we?" 

" So we agreed," I returned. " And our places by the coach are taken, 
you know." 

"Ay! there 's no help for it, I suppose," said Steerforth. "I have 
almost forgotten that there is anything to do in the world but to go out 
tossing on the sea here. I wish there was not." 

" As long as the novelty should last," said I, laughing. 

" Like enough," he returned; " though there 's a sarcastic meaning in 
that observation for an amiable piece of innocence like my young friend. 
Well ! I dare say I am a capricious fellow, David. I know I am ; but 
while the iron is hot, I can strike it vigorously too. I could pass a 
reasonably good examination already, as a pilot in these waters, I think." 

" Mr. Peggotty says you are a wonder," I returned. 

"A nautical phenomenon, eh? " laughed Steerforth. 

" Indeed he does, and you know how truly ; knowing how ardent you 
are in any pursuit you follow, and how easily you can master it. And 
that amazes me most in you, Steerforth — that you should be contented 
with such fitful uses of your powers." 

" Contented ? " he answered, merrily. " I am never contented, except 
with your freshness, my gentle Daisy. As to fitfulness, I have never 
learnt the art of binding myself to any of the wheels on which the Ixions 
of these days are turning round and round. I missed it somehow in a bad 
apprenticeship, and now don't care about it. — You know I have bought a 
boat down here ? " 

" What an extraordinary fellow you are, Steerforth ! " I exclaimed, 
stopping — for this was the first I had heard of it. " When you may 
never care to come near the place agaiu ! " 

" I don't know that," he returned. "I have taken a fancy to the place. 
At all events," walking me briskly on, " I have bought a boat that was 
for sale — a clipper, Mr. Peggotty says ; and so she is — and Mr. Peggotty 
will be master of her in my absence." 

" Now I understand you, Steerforth ! " said I, exultiugly. " You pre- 
tend to have bought it for yourself, but you have really done so to confer 
a benefit on him. I might have known as much at first, knowing you. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 229 

My dear kind Steerforth, how can I tell you what I think of your 
generosity ? " 

"Tush ! " he answered, turning- red. " The less said, the better." 

" Didn't I know? " cried I, " didn't I say that there was not a joy, or 
sorrow, or any emotion of such honest hearts that was indifferent to you?" 

" Aye, aye," he answered, " you told me all that. There let it rest. 
We have said enough ! " 

Afraid of offending him by pursuing the subject when he made so light 
of it, I only pursued it in my thoughts as we went on at even a quicker 
pace than before. 

" She must be newly rigged," said Steerforth, " and I shall leave 
Littimer behind to see it done, that I may know she is quite complete. 
Did I tell you Littimer had come down? " 

"No." 

" Oh, yes ! came down this morning, with a letter from my mother." 

As our looks met, I observed that he was pale even to his lips, though 
he looked very steadily at me. I feared that some difference between him 
and his mother might have led to his being in the frame of mind in which 
I had found him at the solitary fireside. I hinted so. 

" Oh no ! " he said, shaking his head, and giving a slight laugh. 
" Nothing of the sort ! Yes. He is come down, that man of mine." 

" The same as ever ? " said I. 

"The same as ever," said Steerforth. "Distant and quiet as the North 
Pole. He shall see to the boat being fresh named. She's the Stormy 
Petrel now. What does Mr. Peggotty care for Stormy Petrels ! I '11 
have her christened again." 

" By what name ? " I asked. 

" The Little Em'ly." 

As he had continued to look steadily at me, I took it as a reminder that 
he objected to being extolled for his consideration. I could not help 
showing in my face how much it pleased me, but I said little, and he 
resumed his usual smile, and seemed relieved. 

" But see here," he said, looking before us, " where the original little 
Em'ly comes ! And that fellow with her, eh ? Upon my soul, he' s a true 
knight. He never leaves her ! " 

Ham was a boat-builder in these days, having improved a natural 
ingenuity in that handicraft, until he had become a skilled workman. He 
was in his working-dress, and looked rugged enough, but manly withal, 
and a very fit protector for the blooming little creature at his side. Indeed, 
there was a frankness in his face, an honesty, and an undisguised show of 
his pride in her, and his love for her, which were, to me, the best of good 
looks. I thought, as they came towards us, that they were well matched 
even in that particular. 

She withdrew her hand timidly from his arm as we stopped to speak to 
them, and blushed as she gave it to Steerforth and to me. When they 
passed on, after we had exchanged a few words, she did not like to replace 
that hand, but, still appearing timid and constrained, walked by herself. 
I thought all this very pretty and engaging, and Steerforth seemed to 
think so too, as we looked after them fading away in the light of a young- 
moon. 

Suddenly there passed us — evidently following them — a young woman 



£30 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

whose approacli we bad not observed, but whose face I saw as she went 
by, and thought I had a faint remembrance of. She was lightly dressed ; 
looked bold, and haggard, and flaunting, and poor; but seemed, for the 
time, to have given all that to the wind which was blowing, and to have 
nothing in her mind but going after them. As the dark distant level, 
absorbing their figures into itself, left but itself visible between us and the 
sea and clouds, her figure disappeared in like manner, still no nearer to 
them than before. 

" That is a black shadow to be following the girl," said Steerforth, 
standing still ; " what does it mean ? " 

He spoke in a low voice that sounded almost strange to me. 

" She must have it in her mind to beg of them, I think," said I. 

" A beggar woidd be no novelty," said Steerforth, " but it is a strange 
thing that the beggar should take that shape to-night." 

"Why?" I asked him. 

" For no better reason, truly, than because I was thinking," he said, 
after a pause, " of something like it, when it came by. Where the Devil 
did it come from, I wonder ! " 

" Erom the shadow of this wall, I think," said I, as we emerged upon 
a road on which a wall abutted. 

"It's gone!" he returned, looking over his shoulder. "And all ill 
go with it. Now for our dinner ! " 

But, he looked again over his shoulder towards the sea-line glimmering 
afar off ; and yet again. And he wondered about it, in some broken 
expressions, several times, in the short remainder of our walk ; and only 
seemed to forget it when the light of fire and candle shone upon us, 
seated warm and merry, at table. 

Littimer was there, and had his usual effect upon me. When I said to 
him that I hoped Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle were well, he answered 
respectfully (and of course respectably), that they were tolerably well, he 
thanked me, and had sent their compliments. This was all, and yet he 
seemed to me to say as plainly as a man could say : " You are very young, 
sir ; you are exceedingly young." 

We had almost finished dinner, when taking a step or two towards the 
table, from the corner where he kept watch upon us, or rather upon me, 
as I felt, he said to his master : 

" I beg your pardon, sir. Miss Mowcher is down here." 

"Who ? " cried Steerforth, much astonished. 

" Miss Mowcher, sir." 

" Why, what on earth does site do here? " said Steerforth. 

" It appears to be her native part of the country, sir. She informs me 
that she makes one of her professional visits here, every year, sir. I met 
her in the street this afternoon, and she wished to know if she might have 
the honor of waiting on you after dinner, sir." 

" Do you know the Giantess in question, Daisy ? " inquired Steerforth. 

I was obliged to confess — I felt ashamed, even of being at this dis- 
advantage before Littimer — that Miss Mowcher and I were wholly 
unacquainted. 

"Then you shall know her," said Steerforth, "for she is one of 
the seven wonders of the world. When Miss Mowcher comes, show 
her in." 



OF DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 231 

I felt some curiosity and excitement about this lady, especially as 
Steerforth burst into a fit of laughing when I referred to her, and posi- 
tively refused to answer any question of which I made her the subject. I 
remained, therefore, in a state of considerable expectation until the cloth 
had been removed some half an hour, and we were sitting over our 
decanter of wine before the fire, when the door opened, and Littimer, with 
his habitual serenity quite undisturbed, announced : 

" Miss Mowcher ! " 

I looked at the doorway and saw nothing. I was still looking at the 
doorway, thinking that Miss Mowcher was a long while making her 
appearance, when, to my infinite astonishment, there came waddling round 
a sofa which stood between me and it, a pursy dwarf, of about forty or 
forty-five, with a very large head and face, a pair of roguish grey eyes, 
and such extremely little arms, that, to enable herself to lay a finger archly 
against her snub nose, as she ogled Steerforth, she was obliged to meet 
the finger half-way, and lay her nose against it. Her chin, which was 
what is called a double-chin, was so fat that it entirely swallowed up the 
strings of her bonnet, bow and all. Throat she had none ; waist she had 
none ; legs she had none, worth mentioning ; for though she was more 
than full-sized down to where her waist would have been, if she had had 
any, and though she terminated, as human beings generally do, in a pair 
of feet, she was so short that she stood at a common-sized chair as at a 
table, resting a bag she carried on the seat. This- lady ; dressed in an 
off-hand, easy style ; bringing her nose and her forefinger together, with 
the difficulty I have described ; standing with her head necessarily on one 
side, and, with one of her sharp eyes shut up, making an uncommonly 
knowing face ; after ogling Steerforth for a few moments, broke into a 
torrent of words. 

" What ! My flower ! " she pleasantly began, shaking her large head 
at him. " You 're there, are you ! Oh, you naughty boy, fie for shame, 
what do you do so far away from home ? Up to mischief, I '11 be bound. 
Oh, you 're a downy fellow, Steerforth, so you are, and I 'in another, ain't 
I ? Ha, ha, ha ! You 'd have betted a hundred pound to five, now, that 
you wouldn't have seen me here, wouldn't you ? Bless you, man alive, 
I 'm everywhere. I 'm here and there, and where not, like the conjuror's 
half-crown in the lady's handkercher. Talking of hankerchers — and 
talking of ladies — what a comfort you are to your blessed mother, ain't 
you, my dear boy, over one of my shoulders, and I don't say which ! ,J 

Miss Mowcher untied her bonnet, at this passage of her discourse, threw 
back the strings, and sat down, panting, on a footstool in front of the fire 
— making a kind of arbor of the dining-table, which spread its mahogany 
shelter above her head. 

" Oh my stars and what's-their-names ! " she went on, clapping a hand 
on each of her little knees, and glancing shrewdly at me, " I 'm of too 
full a habit, that 's the fact, Steerforth. After a flight of stairs, it gives 
me as much trouble to draw every breath I want, as if it was a bucket of 
water. If you saw me looking out of an upper window, you'd think I 
was a fine woman, wouldn't you ?" 

" I should think that, wherever I saw you," replied Steerforth. 

" Go along, you dog, do ! " cried the little creature, making a whisk at 
him with the handkerchief with which she was wiping her face, " and don't 



232 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

be impudent ! But I give you my word and honor I was at Lady Mithers's 
last week — there 's a woman ! How she wears ! — and Mithers himself 
came into the room where I was waiting for her — there's a man! How 
he wears ! and his wig too, for he 's had it these ten years — and he went 
on at that rate in the complimentary line, that I began to think I should 
be obliged to ring the bell. Ha ! ha ! ha ! He's a pleasant wretch, but 
he wants principle." 

" What were you doing for Lady Mithers ?" asked Steerforth. 

" That 's tellings, my blessed infant," she retorted, tapping her nose 
again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an imp of super- 
natural intelligence. " Never you mind ! You 'd like to know whether I 
stop her hair from falling off, or dye it, or touch up her complexion, or 
improve her eyebrows, wouldn't you? And so you shall, my darling — 
when I tell you ! Do you know what my great grandfather's name was ?" 

" No," said Steerforth. 

" It was Walker, my sweet pet," replied Miss Mowcher, " and he 
came of a long line of Walkers, that I inherit all the Hookey estates from." 

I never beheld anything approaching to Miss Mowcher's wink, except 
Miss Mowcher's self-possession. She had a wonderful way too, when 
listening to what was said to her, or when waiting for an answer to what 
she had said herself, of pausing with her head cunningly on one side, and 
one eye turned up like a magpie's. Altogether I was lost in amazement, 
and sat staring at her, quite oblivious, I am afraid, of the laws of politeness. 

She had by this time drawn the chair to her side, and was busily 
engaged in producing from the bag (plunging in her short arm to the 
shoulder, at every dive) a number of small bottles, sponges, combs, brushes, 
bits of flannel, little pairs of curling irons, and other instruments, which 
she tumbled in a heap upon the chair. From this employment she 
suddenly desisted, and said to Steerforth, much to my confusion : 

" Who 's your friend ? " 

" Mr. Copperfleld," said Steerforth ; " he wants to know you." 

"Well, then, he shall! I thought he looked as if he did!" returned 
Miss Mowcher, waddling up to me, bag in hand, and laughing on me 
as she came. "Pace like a peach!" standing on tiptoe to pinch my 
cheek as I sat. " Quite tempting ! I 'm very fond of peaches. Happy 
to make your acquaintance, Mr. Copperfield, I 'm sure." 

I said that I congratulated myself on having the honor to make hers, 
and that the happiness was mutual. 

"Oh my goodness, how polite we are!" exclaimed Miss Mowcher, 
making a preposterous attempt to cover her large face with her morsel of 
a hand. " What a world of gammon and spinnage it is, though, ain't it !" 

This was addressed confidentially to both of us, as the morsel of a hand 
came away from the face, and buried itself, arm and all, in the bag again. 

" What do you mean, Miss Mowcher ?" said Steerforth. 

" Ha ! ha ! ha ! What a refreshing set of humbugs we are, to be sure, 
ain't we, my sweet child?" replied that morsel of a woman, feeling in 
the bag with her head on one side, and her eye in the air. "Look 
here!" taking something out. "Scraps of the Kussian Prince's nails ! 
Prince Alphabet turned topsy-turvy, I call him, for his name 's got all the 
letters in it, higgledy-piggledy." 

" The Russian Prince is a client of yours, is he ? " said Steerforth. 



^^^^c^?^^^ 




QJ^/??z<a/ce \ - s?s;y 6' ^nA?^< • 



rie^x 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 233 

"I believe you, my pet," replied Miss Mowcher. "I keep his nails in 
order for him. Twice a week ! Fingers and toes I " 

" He pays well, I hope ? " said Steerforth. 

"Pays as he speaks, my dear child — through the nose," replied Miss 
Mowcher. " None of your close shavers the Prince ain't. You 'd say so, 
if you saw his moustachios. Eed by nature, black by art." 

" By your art, of course," said Steerforth. 

Miss Mowcher winked assent. " Forced to send for me. Couldn 't 
help it. The climate affected his dye ; it did very well in Eussia, but it 
was no go here. You never saw such a rusty Prince in all your born 
days as he was. Like old iron ! " 

" Is that why you called him a humbug, just now ? " inquired Steerforth. 

" Oh, you 're a broth of a boy, ain't you ? " returned Miss Mowcher, 
shaking her head violently. " I said, what a set of humbugs we were in 
general, and I showed you the scraps of the Prince's nails to prove it. The 
Prince's nails do more for me, in private families of the genteel sort, than 
all my talents put together. I always carry 'em about. They 're the best 
introduction. If Miss Mowcher cuts the Prince's nails, she must be all 
right. I give 'em away to the young ladies. They put 'em in albums, 
I believe. Ha ! ha ! ha ! Upon my life, ' the whole social system ' (as the 
men call it when they make speeches in Parliament) is a system of Prince's 
nails ! " said this least of women, trying to fold her short arms, and 
nodding her large head. 

Steerforth laughed heartily, and I laughed too. Miss Mowcher con- 
tinuing all the time to shake her head (which was very much on one side), 
and to look into the air with one eye, and to wink with the other. 

" Well, well ! " she said, smiting her small knees, and rising, " this is not 
business. Come, Steerforth, let 's explore the polar regions, and have it over." 

She then selected two or three of the little instruments, and a little 
bottle, and asked (to my surprise) if the table would bear. On Steerforth's 
replying in the affirmative, she pushed a chair against it, and begging the 
assistance of my hand, mounted up, pretty nimbly, to the top, as if it 
were a stage. 

" If either of you saw my ankles," she said, when she was safely 
elevated, " say so, and I '11 go home and destroy myself." 

" / did not," said Steerforth. 

" / did not," said I. 

" Well then," cried Miss Mowcher, " I '11 consent to live. Now, ducky, 
ducky, ducky, come to Mrs. Bond and be killed ! " 

This was an invocation to Steerforth to place himself under her hands ; 
who, accordingly, sat himself down, with his back to the table, and his 
laughing face towards me, and submitted his head to her inspection, 
evidently for no other purpose than our entertainment. To see Miss 
Mowcher standing over him, looking at his rich profusion of brown hair 
through a large round magnifying glass, which she took out of her pocket, 
was a most amazing spectacle. 

" You 're a pretty fellow ! " said Miss Mowcher, after a brief inspection. 
" You 'd be as bald as a friar on the top of your head in twelve months, 
but for me. Just half-a-minute, my young friend, and we'll give you a 
polisliing that shall keep your curls on for the next ten years ! " 

With this, she tilted some of the contents of the little bottle on to one 



234 THE PERSONAL HISTOEY AND EXPERIENCE 

of the little bits of flannel, and, again imparting; some of the virtues of that 
preparation to one of the little brushes, began rubbing and scraping away 
with both on the crown of Steerforth's head in the busiest manner I ever 
witnessed, talking all the time. 

" There 's Charley Pyegrave, the duke's son," she said. " You know 
Charley ? " peeping round into his face. 

" A little, 5 ' said Steerforth. 

" What a man lie is ! There 's a whisker ! As to Charley's legs, if they 
were only a pair (which they ain't), they 'd defy competition. Would you 
believe he tried to do without me — in the Life-Guards, too ? " 

" Mad ! " said Steerforth. 

"It looks like it. However, mad or sane, he tried," returned Miss 
Mowcher. "What does he do, but, lo and behold you, he goes into a 
perfumer's shop, and wants to buy a bottle of the Madagascar Liquid. 

" Charley does ? " said Steerforth. 

" Charley does. But they haven't got any of the Madagascar Liquid." 

" W r hat is it ? Something to drink? " asked Steerforth. 

" To drink?" returned Miss Mowcher, stopping to slap his cheek. " To 
doctor his own moustachios with, you know. There was a woman in the 
shop — elderly female — quite a Griffin — who had never even heard of it by 
name. 'Begging pardon, sir,' said the Griffin to Charley, 'it 's not — ■ 
not — not rouge, is it ? ' ' Eouge,' said Charley to the Griffin. ' What 
the unmentionable to ears polite, do you think I want with rouge ? ' ' No 
offence, sir,' said the Griffin ; ' we have it asked for by so many names, I 
thought it might be.' Now that, my child," continued Miss Mowcher, 
rubbing all the time as busily as ever, "is another instance of the 
refreshing humbug I was speaking of. i" do something in that way 
myself — perhaps a good deal — perhaps a little — sharp 's the word, my 
dear boy — never mind ! " 

" In what way do you mean? In the rouge way? " said Steerforth. 

"Put this and that together, my tender pupil," returned the wary 
Mowcher, touching her nose, " work it by the rule of Secrets in all trades, 
and the product will give you the desired result. I say J do a little 
in that way myself. One Dowager, she calls it lip-salve. Another, she 
calls it gloves. Another, she calls it tucker-edging. Another, she calls 
it a fan. I call it whatever they call it. I supply it for 'em, but we 
keep up the trick so, to one another, and make believe with such a face, 
that they 'd as soon think of laying it on, before a whole drawing-room, as 
before me. And when I wait upon 'em, they '11 say to me sometimes — 
with it on — thick, and no mistake — ' How am I looking, Mowcher? Am 
I pale ? ' Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! Isn't that refreshing, my young friend ! " 

I never did in my days behold anything like Mowcher as she stood upon 
the dining-table, intensely enjoying this refreshment, rubbing busily at 
Steerforth's head, and winking at me over it. 

" Ah ! " she said. " Such things are not much in demand hereabouts. 
That sets me off again ! I havn't seen a pretty woman since I 've been 
here, Jemmy." 

"No?" said Steerforth. 

"Not the ghost of one," replied Miss Mowcher. 

" We could show her the substance of one, I think ? " said Steerforth, 
addressing his eyes to mine. " Eh, Daisy ? " 






OF Dx\.VID COPPERFIELD. 235 

" Yes, indeed," said I. 

" Aha ? " cried the little creature, glancing sharply at my face, and then 
peeping round at Steerforth's. " Umph ? " 

The first exclamation sounded like a question put to both of us, and 
the second like a question put to Steerforth only. She seemed to have 
found no answer to either, but continued to rub, with her head on one 
side and her eye turned up, as if she were looking for an answer in the air, 
and were confident of its appearing presently. 

" A sister of yours, Mr. Copperfield ? " she cried, after a pause, and still 
keeping the same look out. " Aye, aye ? " 

'•' No," said Steerforth, before I could reply. " Nothing of the sort. 
On the contrary, Mr. Copperfield used — or I am much mistaken — to have 
a great admiration for her." 

" Why, hasn't he now?" returned Miss Mowcher. " Is he fickle? oh, 
for shame! Did he sip every flower, and change every hour, until Polly 
his passion requited? — Is her name Polly ? " 

The Elfin suddenness with which she pounced upon me with this 
question, and a searching look, quite disconcerted me for a moment. 

" No, Miss Mowcher," I replied. " Her name is Emily." 

" Aha ? " she cried exactly as before. " Umph? What a rattle I am ! 
Mr. Copperfield, ain't I volatile ? " 

Pier tone and look implied something that was not agreeable to me in 
connexion with the subject. So I said, in a graver manner than any of us 
had yet assumed : 

" She is as virtuous as she is pretty. She is engaged to be married to a 
most worthy and deserving man in her own station of life. I esteem her 
for her good sense, as much as I admire her for her good looks." 

" Well said ! " cried Steerforth. " Hear, hear, hear ! Now, I '11 quench 
the curiosity of this little Patima, my dear Daisy, by leaving her nothing to 
guess at. She is at present apprenticed, Miss Mowcher, or articled, or what- 
ever it may be, to Omer and Joram, Haberdashers, Milliners, and so forth, 
in this town. Do you observe? Omer and Joram. The promise of 
which my friend has spoken, is made and entered into with her cousin ; 
Christian name, Ham • surname, Peggotty ; occupation, boat-builder ; also 
of this town. She lives with a relative ; Christian name, unknown ; sur- 
name, Peggotty ; occupation, seafaring ; also of this town. She is the 
prettiest and most engaging little fairy in the world. I admire her — as 
my friend does — exceedingly. If it were not that I might appear to dis- 
parage her Intended, which I know my friend would not like, I would 
add, that to me she seems to be throwing herself away ; that I am sure 
she might do better ; and that I swear she was born to be a lady." 

Miss Mowcher listened to these words, which were very slowly and 
distinctly spoken, with her head on one side, and her eye in the air as if 
she were still looking for that answer. When he ceased, she became brisk 
again in an instant, and rattled away with surprising volubility. 

" Oh ! And that 's all about it, is it ? " she exclaimed, trimming his 
whiskers with a little restless pair of scissors, that went glancing round 
his head in all directions. " Very well : very well ! Quite a long story. 
Ought to end, * and they lived happy ever afterwards ;' oughtn't it ? Ah ! 
What 's that game at forfeits ? I love my love with an E, because she 's 
enticing ; I hate her with an E, because she 's engaged. I took her to the 



236 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

sign of the exquisite, and treated her with an elopement, her name 's Emily, 
and she lives in the east ? Ha ! ha ! ha ! Mr. Copperfield, ain't I volatile ? " 

Merely looking at me with extravagant slyness, and not waiting for any 
reply, she continued, without drawing breath : 

" There ! If ever any scapegrace was trimmed and touched up to 
perfection, you are. Steerforth. If I understand any noddle in the world, 
I understand yours. Do you hear me when I tell you that, my darling ? 
I understand yours," peeping down into his face. " Now you may mizzle, 
Jemmy (as we say at Court), and if Mr. Copperfield will take the chair 
I '11 operate on him." 

" What do you say, Daisy ?" inquired Steerforth, laughing, and resigning 
his seat. " Will you be improved?" 

" Thank you. Miss Mowcher, not this evening." 

" Don't say no," returned the little woman, looking at me with the 
aspect of a connoisseur ; " a little bit more eyebrow ?" 

" Thank you," I returned, " some other time." 

" Have it carried half a quarter of an inch towards the temple," said 
Miss Mowcher. " We can do it in a fortnight." 

" No, I thank you. Not at present." 

" Go in for a tip," she urged. " No ? Let 's get the scaffolding up, 
then, for a pair of whiskers. Come ! " 

I could not help blushing as I declined, for I felt we were on my weak 
point, now. But Miss Mowcher, finding that I was not at present disposed 
for any decoration within the range of her art, and that I was, for the time 
being, proof against the blandishments of the small bottle which she held 
up before one eye to enforce her persuasions, said we would make a begin- 
ning on an early day, and requested the aid of my hand to descend from 
her elevated station. Thus assisted, she skipped down with much agility, 
and began to tie her double chin into her bonnet. 

" The fee," said Steerforth, " is " 

" Five bob," replied Miss Mowcher, " and dirt-cheap, my chicken. 
Ain't I volatile, Mr. Copperfield? " 

I replied politely : " Not at all." But I thought she was rather so, when 
she tossed up his two half-crowns like a goblin pieman, caught them, 
dropped them in her pocket, and gave it a loud slap. 

" That 's the Till !" observed Miss Mowcher, standing at the chair again, 
and replacing in the bag the miscellaneous collection of little objects she 
had emptied out of it. " Have I got all my traps ? It seems so. It 
won't do to be like long Ned Beadwood, when they took him to church ' to 
marry him to somebody,' as he says, and left the bride behind. Ha ! ha ! ha ! 
A wicked rascal, Ned, but droll ! Now, I know I 'm going to break 
your hearts, but I am forced to leave you. You must call up all your 
fortitude, and try to bear it. Good bye, Mr. Copperfield ! Take care of 
yourself, Jockey of Norfolk ! How I have been rattling on ! It 's all the 
fault of you two wretches, /forgive you ! ' Bob swore ! ' — as the English- 
man said for ' Good night,' when he first learnt Erench, and thought it so 
like English. ' Bob swore,' my ducks ! " 

With the bag slung over her arm, and rattling as she waddled away, 
she waddled to the door ; where she stopped to inquire if she should leave 
us a lock of her hair. " Ain't I volatile? " she added, as a commentary on 
this offer, and, with her finger on her nose, departed. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 237 

Steerforth laughed to that degree, that it was impossible for me to help 
laughing too ; though I am not sure I should have done so, but for 
this inducement. When we had had our laugh quite out, which was after 
some time, he told me that Miss Mowcher had quite an extensive con- 
nexion, and made herself useful to a variety of people in a variety of ways. 
Some people trifled with her as a mere oddity, he said ; but she was as 
shrewdly and sharply observant as any one he knew, and as long-headed 
as she was short-armed. He told me that what she had said of being here, 
and there, and everywhere, was true enough ; for she made little darts into 
the provinces, and seemed to pick up customers everywhere, and to 
know everybody. I asked him what her disposition was : whether it was 
at all mischievous, and if her sympathies were generally on the right side 
of things : but, not succeeding in attracting his attention to these questions 
after two or three attempts, I forbore or forgot to repeat them. He told 
me instead, with much rapidity, a good deal about her skill, and her 
profits ; and about her being a scientific cupper, if I should ever have 
occasion for her services in that capacity. 

She was the principal theme of our conversation during the evening : 
and when we parted for the night Steerforth called after me over the 
bannisters, " Bob swore ! " as I went down stairs. 

I was surprised, when I came to Mr. Barkis's house to find Ham 
walking up and down in front of it, and still more surprised to learn from 
him that little Em'ly was inside. I naturally inquired why he was not 
there too, instead of pacing the street by himself ? 

" Why, you see, Mas'r Davy," he rejoined, in a hesitating manner, 
"Em'ly, she 's talking to some 'un in here." 

" I should have thought," said I, smiling, "that that was a reason for 
your being in here too, Ham." 

" Well, Mas'r Davy, in a general way, so 'twould be," he returned ; 
" but look'ee here, Mas'r Davy," lowering his voice, and speaking very 
gravely. "It's a young woman, sir — a young woman, that Em'ly knowed 
once, and doen't ought to know no more." 

When I heard these words, a light began to fall upon the figure I had 
seen following them, some hours ago. 

" It 's a poor wurem, Mas'r Davy," said Ham, " as is trod under foot 
by all the town. Up street and down street. The mowld o' the church- 
yard don't hold any that the folk shrink away from, more." 

" Did I see her to-night, Ham, on the sands, after we met you ? " 

" Keeping us in sight ? " said Ham. " It 's like you did, Mas'r Davy. 
" Not that I know'd, then, she was theer, sir, but along of her creeping 
soon arterwards under Em'ly's little winder, when she see the light come, 
and whisp'ring ' Em'ly, Em'ly, for Christ's sake have a woman's heart 
towards me. I was once like you ! ' Those was solemn words, Mas'r 
Davy, fur to hear ! " 

" They were indeed, Ham. What did Em'ly do ? " 

" Says Em'ly, ' Martha, is it you? Oh, Martha, can it be you ! '—for 
they had sat at work together, many a day, at Mr. Omer's." 

" I recollect her now ! " cried I, recalling one of the two girls I had 
seen when I first went there. " I recollect her quite well ! " 

" Martha Endell," said Ham. " Two or three year older than Em'ly, 
but was at the school with her." 



238 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" I never heard her name," said I. " I didn't mean to interrupt you." 

" For the matter o' that, Mas'r Davy," replied Ham, " all 'a told a'most 
in them words, ' Em'ly, Em'ly, for Christ's sake have a woman's heart 
towards me. I was once like you ! ' She wanted to speak to Em'ly. 
Em'ly couldn't speak to her theer, for her loving uncle was come home, 
and he wouldn't — no, Mas'r Davy," said Ham, with great earnestness, 
" he couldn't, kind-naturd, tender-hearted as he is, see them two toge- 
ther, side by side, for all the treasures that 's wrecked in the sea." 

I felt how true this was. I knew it, on the instant, quite as well as 
Ham. 

" So Em'ly writes in pencil on a bit of paper," he pursued, " and gives 
it to her oat o' winder to bring here. ' Show that,' she says, ' to my aunt, 
Mrs. Barkis, and she '11 set you down by her fire, for the love of me, till 
uncle is gone out, and I can come.' By-and-by she tells me what I tell you, 
Mas'r Davy, and asks me to bring her. What can I do ? She doen't ought 
to know any such, but I can't deny her, when the tears is on her face." 

He put his hand into the breast of his shaggy jacket, and took out with 
great care a pretty little purse. 

" And if I could deny her when the tears was on her face, Mas'r Davy," 
said Ham, tenderly adjusting it on the rough palm of his hand, " how 
could I deny her when she give me this to carry for her — knowing what 
she brought it for ? Such a toy as it is ! " said Ham, thoughtfully 
looking on it. " With such a little money in it, Em'ly my dear ! " 

I shook him warmly by the hand when he had put it away again — for 
that was more satisfactory to me than saying anything — and we walked up 
and down, for a minute or two, in silence. The door opened then, and 
Peggotty appeared, beckoning to Ham to come in. I would have kept 
away, but she came after me, entreating me to come in too. Even then, 
I would have avoided the room where they all were, but for its being the 
neat-tiled kitchen I have mentioned more than once. The door opening 
immediately into it, I found myself among them, before ( I considered 
whither I was going. 

The girl — the same I had seen upon the sands — was near the fire. She 
was sitting on the ground, with her head and one arm lying on a chair. 
I fancied, from the disposition of her figure, that Em'ly had but newly risen 
from the chair, and that the forlorn head might perhaps have been lying on 
her lap. I saw but little of the girl's face, over which her hair fell loose 
and scattered, as if she had been disordering it with her own hands ; but 
I saw that she was young, and of a fair complexion. Peggotty had been 
crying. So had little Em'ly. Not a word was spoken when we first went 
in ; and the Dutch clock by the dresser seemed, in the silence, to tick 
twice as loud as usual. 

Ern'ly spoke first. 

" Martha wants," she said to Ham, " to go to London." 

"Why to London?" returned Ham. 

He stood between them, looking on the prostrate girl with a mixture of 
compassion for her, and of jealousy of her holding any companionship with 
her whom he loved so well, which I have always remembered distinctly. 
They both spoke as if she were ill ; in a soft, suppressed tone that was 
plainly heard, although it hardly rose above a whisper. 

" Better there than here," said a third voice aloud — Martha's, though 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 239 

she did not move. " No one knows me there. Everybody knows me 
here." 

" What will she do there ?" inquired Ham. 

She lifted up her head, and looked darkly round at him for a moment ; 
then laid it down again, and curved her right arm about her neck, as a 
woman in a fever, or in an agony of pain from a shot, might twist herself. 

" She will try to do well," said little Em'ly. " You don't know what 
she has said to us. Does he — do they — aunt ? " 

Peggotty shook her head compassionately. 

" I '11 try," said Martha, " if you '11 help me away. I never can do 
worse than I have done here. I may do better. Oh ! " with a dreadful 
shiver, " take me out of these streets, where the whole town knows me 
from a child!-" 

As Em'ly held out her hand to Ham, I saw him put in it a little 
canvas bag. She took it, as if she thought it were her purse, and made 
a step or two forward; but finding her mistake, came back to where he 
had retired near me, and showed it to him. 

" It 's all yourn, Em'ly," I could hear him say. "I haven't nowt in 
all the wureld that ain't yourn, my dear. It ain't of no delight to me, 
except for you ! " 

The tears rose freshly in her eyes, but she turned away, and went to 
Martha. What she gave her, I don't know. I saw her stooping over her, 
and putting money in her bosom. She whispered something, and asked 
was that enough ? " More than enough," the other said, and took her 
hand and kissed it. 

Then Martha arose, and gathering her shawl about her, covering her 
face with it, and weeping aloud, went slowly to the door. She stopped a 
moment before going out, as if she would have uttered something or 
turned back ; but no word passed her lips. Making the same low, dreary, 
wretched moaning in her shawl, she went away. 

As the door closed, little Em'ly looked at us three in a hurried 
manner, and then hid her face in her hands, and fell to sobbing. 

" Doen't, Em'ly ! " said Ham, tapping her gently on the shoulder. 
" Doen't, my dear ! You doen't ought to cry so, pretty ! " 

"Oh, Ham!" she exclaimed, still weeping pitifully, "I am not as 
good a girl as I ought to be ! I know I have not the thankful heart, 
sometimes, I ought to have ! " 

" Yes, yes, you have, I 'm sure," said Ham. 

" No ! no ! no ! " cried little Em'ly, sobbing, and shaking her head. 
" I am not as good a girl as I ought to be. Not near ! not near ! " 

And still she cried, as if her heart would break. 

" I try your love too much. I know I do ! " she sobbed. " I 'm often 
cross to you, and changeable with you, when I ought to be far different. 
You are never so to me. Why am I ever so to you, when I should think 
of nothing but how to be grateful, and to make you happy ! " 

" You always make me so," said Ham, " my dear ! I am happy in 
the sight of you. I am happy, all day long, in the thoughts of you." 

" Ah ! that 's not enough ! " she cried. " That is because you are good ; 
not because I am ! Oh, my dear, it might have been a better fortune for 
you, if you had been fond of some one else — of some one steadier and 



240 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

much worthier than me, who was all bound up in you, and never vain 
and changeable like me!" 

" Poor little tender-heart," said Ham, in a low voice. " Martha has 
overset her, altogether." 

" Please, aunt," sobbed Em'ly, " come here, and let me lay my head 
upon you. Oh, I am very miserable to-night, aunt ! Oh, I am not as 
good a girl as I ought to be. I am not, I know ! " 

Peggotty had hastened to the chair before the fire. Em'ly, with her 
arms around her neck, kneeled by her, looking up most earnestly into her 
face. 

" Oh, pray, aunt, try to help me ! Ham, dear, try to help me ! Mr. 
David, for the sake of old times, do, please, try to help me ! I want to be 
a better girl than I am. I want to feel a hundred times more thankful 
than I do. I want to feel more, what a blessed thing it is to be the wife 
of a good man, and to lead a peaceful life. Oh me, oh me! Oh, my 
heart, my heart ! " 

She dropped her face on my old nurse's breast, and, ceasing this suppli- 
cation, which in its agony and grief was half a woman's, half a child's, as 
all her manner was (being, in that, more natural, and better suited to her 
beauty, as I thought, than any other manner could have been), wept 
silently, while my old nurse hushed her like an infant. 

She got calmer by degrees, and then we soothed her ; now talking 
encouragingly, and now jesting a little with her, until she began to raise 
her head and speak to us. So we got on, until she was able to smile, and 
then to laugh, and then to sit up, half ashamed; while Peggotty recalled 
her stray ringlets, dried her eyes, and made her neat again, lest her uncle 
should wonder, when she got home, why his darling had been crying. 

I saw her do, that night, what I had never seen her do before. I saw 
her innocently kiss her chosen husband on the cheek, and creep close to 
his bluff form as if it were her best support. When they went away 
together, in the waning moonlight, and I looked after them, comparing 
their departure in my mind with Martha's, I saw that she held his arm 
with both her hands, and still kept close to him. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

I CORROBORATE MR. DICK, AND CHOOSE A PROFESSION. 

When I awoke in the morning I thought very much of little Em'ly, 
and her emotion last night, after Martha had left. I felt as if I 
had come into the knowledge of those domestic weaknesses and tender- 
nesses in a sacred confidence, and that to disclose them, even to Steer- 
forth, would be wrong. I had no gentler feeling towards any one than 
towards the pretty creature who had been my playmate, and whom I have 
always been persuaded, and shall always be persuaded, to my dying day, 
I then devotedly loved. The repetition to any ears — even to Steerforth's 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 241 

— of what she had been unable to repress when her heart lay open to me 
by an accident, I felt would be a rough deed, unworthy of myself, unworthy 
of the light of our pure childhood, which I always saw encircling her 
head. I made a resolution, therefore, to keep it in my own breast ; and 
there it gave her image a new grace. 

While we were at breakfast, a letter was delivered to me from my aunt. 
As it contained matter on which I thought Steerforth could advise me as 
well as any one, and on which I knew I should be delighted to consult 
him, I resolved to make it a subject of discussion on our journey home. 
Tor the present we had enough to do, in taking leave of all our friends. 
Mr. Barkis was far from being the last among them, in his regret at our 
departure; and I believe would even have opened the box again, and 
sacrificed another guinea, if it would have kept us eight-and-forty hours 
in Yarmouth. Peggotty, and all her family, were full of grief at our 
going. The whole house of Omer and Joram turned out to bid us good 
bye ; and there were so many seafaring volunteers in attendance on 
Steerforth, when our portmanteaus went to the coach, that if we had had 
the baggage of a regiment with us, we should hardly have wanted porters 
to carry it. In a word, we departed to the regret and admiration of all 
concerned, and left a great many people very sorry behind us. 

" Do you stay long here, Littimer ?" said I, as he stood waiting to see 
the coach start. 

"No, sir," he replied; "probably not very long, sir." 

" He can hardly say just now," observed Steerforth, carelessly. " He 
knows what he has to do, and he '11 do it." 

" That I am sure he will," said I. 

Littimer touched his hat in acknowledgment of my good opinion, and 
I felt about eight years old. He touched it once more, wishing us a good 
journey; and we left him standing on the pavement, as respectable a mystery 
as any pyramid in Egypt. 

For some little time we held no conversation, Steerforth being unusually 
silent, and I being sufficiently engaged in wondering, within myself, when 
I should see the old places again, and what new changes might happen to 
me or them in the meanwhile. At length Steerforth, becoming gay and 
talkative in a moment, as he could become anything he liked at any 
moment, pulled me by the arm : 

" Find a voice, David. What about the letter you were speaking of at 
breakfast?" 

" Oh ! " said I, taking it out of my pocket. " It 's from my aunt." 

" And what does she say, requiring consideration ! " 

" Why, she reminds me, Steerforth," said I, " that I came out on this 
expedition to look about me, and to think a little." 

" Which, of course, you have done ? " 

" Indeed I can't say I have, particularly. To tell you the truth, I am 
afraid I had forgotten it." 

" Well ! look about you now, and make up for your negligence," said 
Steerforth. " Look to the right, and you '11 see a flat country, with a 
good deal of marsh in it ; look to the left, and you '11 see the same. Look 
to the front, and you '11 find no difference ; look to the rear, and there it 
is still." 



242 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

I laughed, and replied that I saw no suitable profession in the whole 
prospect ; which was perhaps to be attributed to its flatness. 

"What says our aunt on the subject?" inquired Steerforth, glancing 
at the letter in my hand. " Does she suggest anything? " 

" Why, yes," said I. " She asks me, here, if I think I should like to be 
a proctor ? What do you think of it ? " 

" Well, I don't know," replied Steerforth, coolly. " You may as well 
do that as anything else, I suppose." 

I could not help laughing again, at his balancing all callings and profes- 
sions so equally ; and I told him so. 

" What is a proctor, Steerforth ? " said I. 

" Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney," replied Steerforth. " He is, 
to some faded courts held in Doctors' Commons — a lazy old nook near St. 
Paul's Churchyard — what solicitors are to the courts of law and equity. 
He is a functionary whose existence, in the natural course of things, would 
have terminated about two hundred years ago. I can tell you best what 
he is, by telling you what Doctors' Commons is. It 's a little out-of-the- 
way place, where they administer what is called ecclesiastical law, and 
play all kinds of tricks with obsolete old monsters of acts of Parlia- 
ment, which three-fourths of the world know nothing about, and the other 
fourth supposes to have been dug up, in a fossil state, in the days of the 
Edwards. It 's a place that has an ancient monopoly in suits about people's 
wills and people's marriages, and disputes among ships and boats." 

" Nonsense, Steerforth ! " I exclaimed. " You don't mean to say that 
there is any affinity between nautical matters and ecclesiastical matters ? " 

" I don't, indeed, my dear boy," he returned; "but I mean to say that 
they are managed and decided by the same set of people, down in that 
same Doctors' Commons. You shall go there one day, and find them 
blundering through half the nautical terms in Young's Dictionary, apropos 
of the ' Nancy ' having run down the { Sarah Jane,' or Mr. Peggotty and the 
Yarmouth boatmen having put off in a gale of wind with an anchor and 
cable to the ' Nelson ' Indiaman in distress ; and you shall go there another 
day, and find them deep in the evidence, pro and con, respecting a clergy- 
man who has misbehaved himself; and you shall find the judge in the 
nautical case, the advocate in the clergyman case, or contrariwise. They 
are like actors : now a man 's a judge, and now he is not a judge ; now he 's 
one thing, now he 's another ; now he 's something else, change and change 
about ; but it 's always a very pleasant profitable little affair of private 
theatricals, presented to an uncommonly select audience." 

"But advocates and proctors are not one and the same?" said I, a 
little puzzled. " Are they ? " 

"No," returned Steerforth, "the advocates are civilians — men who 
have taken a doctor's degree at college — which is the first reason of my 
knowing anything about it. The proctors employ the advocates. Both 
get very comfortable fees, and altogether they make a mighty snug little 
party. On the whole, I would recommend you to take to Doctors' 
Commons kindly, David. They plume themselves on their gentility there, ■ 
I can tell you, if that 's any satisfaction." 

I made allowance for Steerforth's light way of treating the subject, 
and, considering it with reference to the staid air of gravity and antiquity 
which I associated with that " lazy old nook near St. Paul's Churchyard," 



OF DAVID COPPEEEIELD. 243 

did not feel indisposed towards my aunt's suggestion ; which she left to 
my free decision, making no scruple of telling me that it had occurred 
to her, on her lately visiting her own proctor in Doctors' Commons 
for the purpose of settling her will in my favor. 

" That 's a laudable proceeding on the part of our aunt, at all events," 
said Steerforth, when I mentioned it ; " and one deserving of all encourage- 
ment. Daisy, my advice is that you take kindly to Doctors' Commons." 

I quite made up my mind to do so. I then told Steerforth that my 
aunt was in town awaiting me (as I found from her letter), and that she 
had taken lodgings for a week at a kind of private hotel in Lincoln's 
Inn Fields, where there was a stone staircase, and a convenient door in the 
roof; my aunt being firmly persuaded that every house in London was 
going to be burnt down every night. 

We achieved the rest of our journey pleasantly, sometimes recurring to 
Doctors' Commons, and anticipating the distant days when I should be a 
proctor there, which Steerforth pictured in a variety of humorous and 
whimsical lights, that made us both merry. When we came to our journey's 
end, he went home, engaging to call upon me next day but one ; and I 
drove to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where I found my aunt up, and waiting 
supper. 

If I had been round the world since we parted, we could hardly have 
been better pleased to meet again. My aunt cried outright as she em- 
braced me ; and said, pretending to laugh, that if my poor mother had been 
alive, that silly little creature would have shed tears, she had no doubt. 

" So you have left Mr. Dick behind, aunt? " said 1. "I am sorry for 
that. Ah, Janet, how do you do ? " 

As Janet curtsied, hoping I was well, I observed my aunt's visage 
lengthen very much. 

" I am sorry for it, too," said my aunt, rubbing her nose. " I have 
had no peace of mind, Trot, since I have been here." 

Before I could ask why, she told me. 

" I am convinced," said my aunt ; laying her hand with melancholy 
firmness on the table, " that Dick's character is not a character to keep 
the donkies off. I am confident he wants strength of purpose. I ought 
to have left Janet at home, instead, and then my mind might perhaps 
have been at ease. If ever there was a donkey trespassing on my green," 
said my aunt, with emphasis, " there was one this afternoon at four o'clock. 
A cold feeling came over me from head to foot, and I know it was a 
donkey ! " 

I tried to comfort her on this point, but she rejected consolation. 

"It was a donkey," said my aunt; "and it was the one with the 
stumpy tail which that Murdering sister of a woman rode, when she came 
to my house." This had been, ever since, the only name my aunt knew 
for Miss Murdstone. " If there is any donkey in Dover, whose audacity 
it is harder to me to bear than another's, that," said my aunt, striking the 
table, "is the animal! " 

Janet ventured to suggest that my aunt might be disturbing herself 
unnecessarily, and that she believed the donkey in question was then 
engaged in the sand and gravel line of business, and was not available for 
purposes of trespass. But my aunt wouldn't hear of it. 

b .2 



244 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Supper was comfortably served and hot, though my aunt's rooms were 
very high up — whether that she might have more stone stairs for her money, 
or might be nearer to the door in the roof, I don't know — and consisted 
of a roast fowl, a steak, and some vegetables, to all of which I did ample 
justice, and which were all excellent. But my aunt had her own ideas 
concerning London provision, and ate but little. 

"I suppose this unfortunate fowl was born and brought up in a cellar," 
said my aunt, " and never took the air except on a hackney coach-stand. 
I hope the steak may be beef, but I don't believe it. Nothing 's genuine 
in the place, in my opinion, but the dirt." 

"Don't you think the fowl may have come out of the country, aunt ? " 
I hinted. 

" Certainly not," returned my aunt. " It would be no pleasure to a 
London tradesman to sell anything which was what he pretended it 
was." 

I did not venture to controvert this opinion, but I made a good supper, 
which it greatly satisfied her to see me do. When the table was cleared, 
Janet assisted her to arrange her hair, to put on her nightcap, which was 
of a smarter construction than usual ("in case of fire," my aunt said), and 
to fold her gown back over her knees, these being her usual preparations 
for warming herself before going to bed. I then made her, according to 
certain established regulations from which no deviation, however slight, 
could ever be permitted, a glass of hot white wine and water, and a slice 
of toast cut into long thin strips. With these accompaniments we were 
left alone to finish the evening, my aunt sitting opposite to me drinking 
her wine and water ; soaking her strips of toast in it, one by one, before 
eating them ; and looking benignantly on me, from among the borders of 
her nightcap. 

" Well, Trot," she began, " what do you think of the proctor plan ? 
Or have you not begun to think about it yet ? " 

" I have thought a good deal about it, my dear aunt, and I have talked 
a good deal about it with Steerforth. I like it very much indeed. I like 
it exceedingly." 

" Come ! " said my aunt. " That 's cheering ! " 

"I have only one difficulty, aunt." 

" Say what it is, Trot," she returned. 

" Why, I want to ask, aunt, as this seems, from what I understand, to 
be a limited profession, whether my entrance into it would not be very 
expensive ? " 

" It will cost," returned my aunt, " to article you, just a thousand 
pounds." 

" Now, my dear aunt," said I, drawing my chair nearer, " I am uneasy 
in my mind about that. It 's a large sum of money. You have expended 
a great deal on my education, and have always been as liberal to me in all 
things, as it was possible to be. You have been the soul of generosity. 
Surely there are some ways in which I might begin life with hardly any 
outlay, and yet begin with a good hope of getting on by resolution and 
exertion. Are you sure that it would not be better to try that course? 
Are you certain that you can afford to part with so much money, and 
that it is right it shoidd be so expended ? I only ask you, my second 
mother, to consider. Are you certain?" 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 245 

My aunt finished eating the piece of toast on which she was then 
engaged, looking me full in the face all the while ; and then setting her 
glass on the chimney-piece, and folding her hands upon her folded skirts, 
replied as follows : 

" Trot, my child, if I have any object in life, it is to provide for your 
being a good, a sensible, and a happy man. I am bent upon it — so is 
Dick. I should like some people that I know to hear Dick's conver- 
sation on the subject. Its sagacity is wonderful. But no one knows the 
resources of that man's intellect, except myself! " 

She stopped for a moment to take my hand between hers, and went on : 

" It 's in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some influence 
upon the present. Perhaps I might have been better friends with your 
poor father. Perhaps I might have been better friends with that poor 
child your mother, even after your sister Betsey Trotwood disappointed 
me. When you came to me, a little runaway boy, all dusty and way- 
worn, perhaps I thought so. Prom that time until now, Trot, you have 
ever been a credit to me and a pride and pleasure. I have no other claim 
upon my means ; at least " — here to my surprise she hesitated, and 
was confused — " no, I have no other claim upon my means — and you are 
my adopted child. Only be a loving child to me in my age, and bear 
with my whims and fancies ; and you will do more for an old woman 
whose prime of life was not so happy or conciliating as it might have 
been, than ever that old woman did for you." 

It was the first time I had heard my aunt refer to her past history. 
There was a magnanimity in her quiet way of doing so, and of dismissing 
it, which would have exalted her in my respect and affection, if any thing 
could. 

" All is agreed and understood between us now, Trot," said my aunt, 
" and we need talk of this no more. Give me a kiss, and we '11 go to the 
Commons after breakfast to-morrow." 

We had a long chat by the fire before we went to bed. I slept in a 
room on the same floor with my aunt's, and was a little disturbed in the 
course of the night by her knocking at my door, as often as she was 
agitated by a distant sound of hackney-coaches or market-carts, and inquir- 
ing " if I heard the engines ? " But towards morning she slept better, 
and suffered me to do so too. 

At about mid-day, we set out for the offices of Messrs. Spenlow and 
Jorkins in Doctors' Commons. My aunt, who had this other general 
opinion in reference to London, that every man she saw was a pickpocket, 
gave me her purse to carry for her, which had ten guineas in it and some 
silver. 

We made a pause at the toy-shop in Pleet-street, to see the giants of 
Saint Dunstan's strike upon the bells — we had timed our going, so as to 
catch them at it, at twelve o'clock — and then went on towards Ludgate 
Hill, and St. Paul's Churchyard. We were crossing to the former place, 
when I found that my aunt greatly accelerated her speed, and looked 
frightened. I observed, at the same time, that a lowering ill-dressed man 
who had stopped and stared at us in passing, a little before, was coming 
so close after us, as to brush against her. 

"Trot! My dear Trot!" cried my aunt, in a terrified whisper, and 
pressing my arm. " I don't know what I am to do." 



246 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Don't be alarmed," said I. " There 's nothing to be afraid of. Step 
into a shop, and I '11 soon get rid of this fellow." 

" No, no, child ! " she returned. " Don't speak to him for the world. 
I entreat, I order you ! " 

" Good Heaven, aunt ! " said I. " He is nothing but a sturdy beggar." 

" You don't know what he is ! " replied my aunt. " You don't know 
who he is ! You don't know what you say ! " 

We had stopped in an empty doorway, while this was passing, and he 
had stopped too. 

" Don't look at him ! " said my aunt, as I turned my head indignantly, 
" but get me a coach, my dear, and wait for me in St. Paul's Churchyard." 

" Wait for you ? " T repeated. 

" Yes," rejoined my aunt, " I must go alone. I must go with him." 

" With him, aunt ? This man ? " 

" I am in my senses," she replied, " and I tell you I must. Get me a 
coach ! " 

However much astonished I might be, I was sensible that I had no right 
to refuse compliance with such a peremptory command. I hurried away a 
few paces, and called a hackney chariot which was passing empty. Almost 
before I could let down the steps, my aunt sprang in, I don't know how, 
and the man followed. She waved her hand to me to go away, so 
earnestly, that, all confounded as I was, I turned from them at once. In 
doing so I heard her say to the coachman, " Drive anywhere ! Drive 
straight on ! " and presently the chariot passed me, going up the hill. 

What Mr. Dick had told me, and what I had supposed to be a delusion 
of his, now came into my mind. I could not doubt that this person was 
the person of whom he had made such mysterious mention, though what 
the nature of his hold upon my aunt could possibly be, I was quite unable 
to imagine. After half an hour's cooling in the churchyard, I saw the 
chariot coming back. The driver stopped beside me, and my aunt was 
sitting in it alone. 

She had not yet sufficiently recovered from her agitation to be quite 
prepared for the visit we had to make. She desired me to get into the 
chariot, and to tell the coachman to drive slowly up and down a little 
while. She said no more, except, " My dear child, never ask me what it 
was, and don't refer to it," until she had perfectly regained her compo- 
sure, when she told me she was quite herself now, and we might get out. 
On her giving me her purse, to pay the driver, I found that all the 
guineas were gone, and only the loose silver remained. 

Doctors' Commons was approached by a little low archway. Before 
we had taken many paces down the street beyond it, the noise of the city 
seemed to melt, as if by magic, into a softened distance. A few dull 
courts, and narrow ways, brought us to the sky-lighted offices of Spenlow 
and Jorkins ; in the vestibule of which temple, accessible to pilgrims with- 
out the ceremony of knocking, three or four clerks were at work as 
copyists. One of these, a little dry man, sitting by himself, who wore a 
stiff brown wig that looked as if it were made of gingerbread, rose to 
receive my aunt, and show us into Mr. Spenlow's room. 

" Mr. Spenlow's in Court, ma'am," said the dry man; "it 's an Arches 
day ; but it 's close by, and I '11 send for him directly." 

As we were left to look about us while Mr. Spenlow was fetched, I 



OP DAVID COPPERPIELD. 247 

availed myself of the opportunity. The furniture of the room was old- 
fashioned and dusty ; and the green baize on the top of the writing-table 
had lost all its color, and was as withered and pale as an old pauper. 
There were a great many bundles of papers on it, some indorsed as Allega- 
tions, and some (to my surprise) as Libels, and some as being in the 
Consistory Court, and some in the Arches Court, and some in the Prero- 
gative Court, and some in the Admiralty Court, and some in the Delegates' 
Court ; giving me occasion to wonder much, how many Courts there might 
be in the gross, and how long it would take to understand them all. 
Besides these, there were sundry immense manuscript Books of Evidence 
taken on affidavit, strongly bound, and tied together in massive sets, a set 
to each cause, as if every cause were a history in ten or twenty volumes. 
All this looked tolerably expensive, I thought, and gave me an agreeable 
notion of a proctor's business. I was casting my eyes with increasing 
complacency over these and many similar objects, when hasty footsteps 
were heard in the room outside, and Mr. Spenlow, in a black gown 
trimmed with white fur, came hurrying in, taking off his hat as he came. 

He was a little light-haired gentleman, with undeniable boots, and the 
stiffest of white cravats and shirt-collars. He was buttoned up, mighty 
trim and tight, and must have taken a great deal of pains with his 
whiskers, which were accurately curled. His gold watch-chain was 
so massive, that a fancy came across me, that he ought to have a sinewy 
golden arm, to draw it out with, like those which are put up over the gold- 
beaters' shops. He was got up with such care, and was so stiff, that 
he could hardly bend himself; being obliged, when he glanced at some 
papers on his desk, after sitting down in his chair, to move his whole body, 
from the bottom of his spine, like Punch. 

I had previously been presented by my aunt, and had been courteously 
received. He now said : 

" And so, Mr. Copperfield, you think of entering into our profession ? 
I casually mentioned to Miss Trotwood, when I had the pleasure of 
an interview with her the other day," — with another inclination of his 
body — Punch again — " that there was a vacancy here. Miss Trotwood 
was good enough to mention that she had a nephew who was her peculiar 
care, and for whom she was seeking to provide genteelly in life. That 
nephew, I believe, I have now the pleasure of " — Punch again. 

I bowed my acknowledgments, and said, my aunt had mentioned to 
me that there was that opening, and that I believed I should like it very 
much. That I was strongly inclined to like it, and had taken imme- 
diately to the proposal. That I could not absolutely pledge myself to like 
it, until I knew something more about it. That although it was little else 
than a matter of form, I presumed I should have an opportunity of trying 
how I liked it, before I bound myself to it irrevocably. 

" Oh surely ! surely ! " said Mr. Spenlow. " We always, in this house, 
propose a month — an initiatory month. I should be happy, myself, to 
propose two months — three — an indefinite period, in fact — but I have a 
partner. Mr. Jorkins." 

" And the premium, «sir," I returned, " is a thousand pounds ■?" 

" And the premium, Stamp included, is a thousand pounds," said 
Mr. Spenlow. " As I have mentioned to Miss Trotwood, I am actuated 
by no mercenary considerations; few men are less so, I believe; but 



248 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Mr. Jorkins has his opinions on these subjects, and I am bound to respect 
Mr. Jorkins's opinions. Mr. Jorkins thinks a thousand pounds too little, 
in short." 

" I suppose, sir," said I, still desiring to spare my aunt, "that it is not 
the custom here, if' an articled clerk were particularly useful, and made 
himself a perfect master of his profession — " I could not help blushing, 
this looked so like praising myself — " I suppose it is not the custom, in 
the later years of his time, to allow him any — " 

Mi*. Spenlow, by a great effort, just lifted his head far enough out of his 
cravat to shake it, and answered, anticipating the word " salary :" 

" No. I will not say what consideration I might give to that point 
myself, Mr. Copperfield, if I were unfettered. Mr. Jorkins is immovable." 

I was quite dismayed by the idea of this terrible Jorkins. But I found 
out afterwards that he was a mild man, of a heavy temperament, whose 
place in the business was to keep himself in the back-ground, and be 
constantly exhibited by name as the most obdurate and ruthless of men. 
If a clerk wanted his salary raised, Mr. Jorkins wouldn't listen to such a 
proposition. If a client were slow to settle his bill of costs, Mi*. Jorkins 
was resolved to have it paid; and however painful these things might 
be (and always were) to the feelings of Mr. Spenlow, Mr. Jorkins would 
have his bond. The heart and hand of the good angel Spenlow would 
have been always open, but for the restraining demon Jorkins. As I have 
grown older, I think I have had experience of some other houses doing 
business on the principle of Spenlow and Jorkins ! 

It was settled that I should begin my month's probation as soon as I 
pleased, and that my aunt need neither remain in town nor return at its 
expiration, as the articles of agreement, of which I was to be the subject, 
could easily be sent to her at home for her signature. When we had got 
so far, Mr. Spenlow offered to take me into Court then and there, and 
show me what sort of place it was. As I was willing enough to know, we 
went out with this object, leaving my aunt behind ; who would trust 
herself, she said, in no such place, and who, I think, regarded all Courts 
of Law as a sort of powder-mills that might blow up at any time. 

Mi*. Spenlow conducted me through a paved courtyard formed of grave 
brick houses, which I inferred, from the Doctors' names upon the doors, to 
be the official abiding-places of the learned advocates of whom Steerforth 
had told me ; and into a large dull room, not unlike a chapel to my 
thinking, on the left hand. The upper part of this room was fenced off 
from the rest ; and there, on the two sides of a raised platform of the 
horse-shoe form, sitting on easy old-fashioned dining-room chairs, were 
sundry gentlemen in red gowns and grey wigs, whom I found to be the 
Doctors aforesaid. Blinking over a little desk like a pulpit-desk, in the 
curve of the horse-shoe, was an old gentleman, whom, if I had seen him 
in an aviary, I should certainly have taken for an owl, but who I learned 
was the presiding judge. In the space within the horse-shoe, lower 
than these, that is to say, on about the level of the floor, were sundry 
other gentlemen, of Mr. Spenlow's rank, and dressed like him in black 
gowns with white fur upon them, sitting at a long green table. Their 
cravats were in general stiff, I thought, and their looks haughty ; but in 
this last respect I presently conceived I had done them an injustice, for 
when two or three of them had to rise and answer a question of the 



OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 249 

presiding dignitary, I never saw anything more sheepish. The public, 
represented by a boy with a comforter, and a shabby-genteel man secretly 
eating crumbs out of his coat pockets, was warming itself at a stove in the 
centre of the Court. The languid stillness of the place was only broken 
by the chirping of this fire and by the voice of one of the Doctors, who 
was wandering slowly through a perfect library of evidence, and stopping 
to put up, from time to time, at little roadside inns of argument on the 
journey. Altogether, I have never, on any occasion, made one at such 
a cosey, dosey, old-fashioned, time-forgotten, sleepy-headed little family- 
party in all my life ; and I felt it would be quite a soothing opiate to 
belong to it in any character — except perhaps as a suitor. 

Very well satisfied with the dreamy nature of this retreat, I informed 
Mr. Spenlow that I had seen enough for that time, and we rejoined my 
aunt ; in company with whom I presently departed from the Commons, 
feeling very young when I went out of Spenlow and Jorkins's, on account 
of the clerks poking one another with their pens to point me out. 

We arrived at Lincoln's Inn Fields without any new adventures, except 
encountering an unlucky donkey in a costermonger's cart, who suggested 
painful associations to my aunt. We had another long talk about my 
plans, when we were safely housed ; and as 1 knew she was anxious to get 
home, and, between fire, food, and pickpockets, could never be considered 
at her ease for half-an-hour in London, I urged her not to be uncom- 
fortable on my account, but to leave me to take care of myself. 

" I have not been here a week to-morrow, without considering that too, 
my dear," she returned. " There is a furnished little set of chambers to 
be let in the Adelphi, Trot, which ought to suit you to a marvel." 

With this brief introduction, she produced from her pocket an adver- 
tisement, carefully cut out of a newspaper, setting forth that in Buck- 
ingham Street in the Adelphi there was to be let, furnished, with a view 
of the river, a singularly desirable, and compact set of chambers, forming 
a genteel residence for a young gentleman, a member of one of the Inns of 
Court, or otherwise, with immediate possession. Terms moderate, and 
could be taken for a month only if required. 

" Why, this is the very thing, aunt ! " said I, flushed with the possible 
dignity of living in chambers. 

" Then come," replied my aunt, immediately resuming the bonnet she 
had a minute before iaid aside. " We '11 go and look at 'em." 

Away we went. The advertisement directed us to apply to Mrs. Crupp 
on the premises, and we rung the area bell, which we supposed to com- 
municate with Mrs. Crupp. It Avas not until we had rung three or four 
times that we could prevail on Mrs. Crupp to communicate with us, but 
at last she appeared, being a stout lady with a flounce of flannel petticoat 
below a nankeen gown. 

" Let us see these chambers of yours, if you please, ma'am," said 
my aunt. 

" For this gentleman ? " said Mrs. Crupp, feeling in her pocket for 
her keys. 

" Yes, for my nephew," said my aunt. 

" And a sweet set they is for sich ! " said Mrs. Crupp. 

So we went up-stairs. 

They were on the top of the house — a great point with my aunt, being 



250 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

near the fire-escape — and consisted of a little half-blind entry where you 
could see hardly anything, a little ^tone-blind pantry where you could see 
nothing at all, a sitting-room, and a bed-room. The furniture was rather 
faded, but quite good enough for me ; and, sure enough, the river was 
outside the windows. 

As I was delighted with the place, my aunt and Mrs. Crupp withdrew 
into the pantry to discuss the terms, while I remained on the sitting- 
room sofa, hardly daring to think it possible that I could be destined to 
live in such a noble residence. After a single combat of some duration 
they returned, and I saw, to my joy, both in Mrs. Crupp's countenance 
and in my aunt's, that the deed was done. 

" Is it the last occupant's furniture? " inquired my aunt. 

" Yes it is, ma'am," said Mrs. Crupp. 

" What 's become of him ? " asked my aunt. 

Mrs. Crupp was taken with a troublesome cough, in the midst of which 
she articulated with much difiiculty. " He was took ill here, ma'am, and 
— ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! dear me ! — and he died." 

" Hey ! What did he die of ? " asked my aunt. 

" Well, ma'am, he died of drink," said Mrs. Crupp in confidence. " And 
smoke." 

" Smoke ? You don't mean chimneys ? " said my aunt. 

" No, ma'am," returned Mrs. Crupp. " Cigars and pipes." 

" That *s not catching, Trot, at any rate," remarked my aunt, turning 
to me. 

" No, indeed," said I. 

In short, my aunt, seeing how enraptured I was with the premises, took 
them for a month, with leave to remain for twelve months when that time 
was out. Mrs. Crupp was to find linen, and to cook ; every other neces- 
sary was already provided ; and Mrs. Crupp expressly intimated that she 
should always yearn towards me as a son. I was to take possession the 
day after to-morrow, and Mrs. Crupp said thank Heaven she had now 
found summun she could care for ! 

On our way back, my aunt informed me how she confidently trusted 
that the life I was now to lead would make me firm and self-reliant, 
which was all I wanted. She repeated this several times next day, in the 
intervals of our arranging for the transmission of my clothes and books 
from Mr.Wickfield's; relative to which, and to all my late holiday, I wrote 
a long letter to Agnes, of which my aunt took charge, as she was to 
leave on the succeeding day. Not to lengthen these particulars, I need 
only add, that she made a handsome provision for all my possible wants 
during my month of trial ; that Steeri'orth, to my great disappointment 
and hers too, did not make his appearance before she went away ; that I 
saw her safely seated in the Dover coach, exulting in the coming discom- 
fiture of the vagrant donkeys, with Janet at her side ; and that when 
the coach was gone, I turned my face to the Adelphi, pondering on the 
old days when I used to roam about its subterranean arches, and on the 
happy changes which had brought me to the surface. 



OP DAVID COPPERPIELD. 251 



CHAPTER XXIY. 

MY FIRST DISSIPATION. 



It was a wonderfully fine thing to have that lofty castle to myself, and 
to feel, when I shut my outer door, like Eobinson Crusoe, when he had 
got into his fortification, and pulled his ladder up after him. It was 
a wonderfully fine thing to walk about town with the key of my house in 
my pocket, and to know that I could ask any fellow to come home, and 
make quite sure of its being inconvenient to nobody, if it were not so to 
me. It was a wonderfully fine thing to let myself in and out, and to 
come and go without a word to any one, and to ring Mrs. Crupp up, 
gasping, from the depths of the earth, when I wanted her — and when 
she was disposed to come. All this, I say, was wonderfully fine ; but I 
must say, too, that there were times when it was very dreary. 

It was fine in the morning, particularly in the fine mornings. It 
looked a very fresh, free life, by daylight : still fresher, and more free, by 
sunlight. But as the day declined, the life seemed to go down too. I 
don't know how it was ; it seldom looked well by candle-light. I wanted 
somebody to talk to, then. I missed Agnes. I found a tremendous 
blank, in the place of that smiling repository of my confidence. Mrs. 
Crupp appeared to be a long way off. I thought about my predecessor, 
who had died of drink and smoke; and I could have wished he had been so 
good as to live, and not bother me with his decease. 

After two days and nights, I felt as if I had lived there for a year, and 
yet I was not an hour older, but was quite as much tormented by my 
own youthfulness as ever. 

Steerforth not yet appearing, which induced me to apprehend that he 
must be ill, I left the Commons early on the third day, and walked out to 
Highgate. Mrs. Steerforth was very glad to see me, and said that he had 
gone away with one of his Oxford friends to see another who lived near 
St. Albans, but that she expected him to return to-morrow. I was so 
fond of him, that I felt quite jealous of his Oxford friends. 

As she pressed me to stay to dinner, I remained, and I believe we talked 
about nothing but him all day. I told her how much the people liked 
him at Yarmouth, and what a delightful companion he had been. Miss 
Dartle was full of hints and mysterious questions, but took a great 
interest in all our proceedings there, and said, " Was it really, though? " and 
so forth, so often, that she got everything out of me she wanted to know. 
Her appearance was exactly what I have described it, when I first saw 
her; but the society of the two ladies was so agreeable, and came so 
natural to me, that I felt myself falling a little in love with her. I could 
not help thinking, several times in the course of the evening, and parti- 
cularly when I walked home at night, what delightful company she would 
be in Buckingham Street. 

I was taking my coffee and roll in the morning, before going to the 
Commons — and I may observe in this place that it is surprising how 
much coffee Mrs. Crupp used, and how weak it was, considering — when 
Steerforth himself walked in, to my unbounded joy. 



252 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" My dear Steerforth," cried I, " I began to think I should never see 
you again ! " 

" I was carried off, by force of arms," said Steerforth, " the very next 
morning after I got home. Why, Daisy, what a rare old bachelor you 
are here ! " 

I showed him over the establishment, not omitting the pantry, with 
no little pride, and he commended it highly. " I tell you what, old boy," 
he added, " I shall make quite a town-house of this place, unless you give 
me notice to quit." 

This was a delightful hearing. I told him if he waited for that, he 
would have to wait till doomsday. 

" But you shall have some breakfast ! " said I, with my hand on the 
bell-rope, " and Mrs. Crupp shall make you some fresh coffee, and I '11 
toast you some bacon in a bachelor's Dutch-oven that I have got here." 

" No, no ! " said Steerforth. " Don't ring ! I can't ! I am going to 
breakfast with one of these fellows who is at the Piazza Hotel, in Co vent 
Garden." 

" But you '11 come back to dinner ? " said I. 

" I can't, upon my life. There 's nothing I should like better, but I 
must remain with these two fellows. We are all three off together 
to-morrow morning." 

" Then bring them here to dinner," I returned. <c Do you think they 
would come ? " 

" Oh ! they would come fast enough," said Steerforth ; " but we should 
inconvenience you. You had better come and dine with us somewhere." 

I would not by any means consent to this, for it occurred to me that I 
really ought to have a little housewarming, and that there never could be 
a better opportunity. I had a new pride in my rooms after his approval 
of them, and burned with a desire to develop their utmost resources. 
I therefore made him promise positively in the names of his two friends, 
and we appointed six o'clock as the dinner-hour. 

When he was gone, I rang for Mrs. Crupp, and acquainted her with my 
desperate design. Mrs. Crupp said, in the first place, of course it was 
well known she couldn't be expected to wait, but she knew a handy 
young man, who she thought could be prevailed upon to do it, and 
whose terms would be five shillings, and what I pleased. I said, cer- 
tainly we would have him. Next, Mrs. Crupp said it was clear she couldn't 
be in two places at once (which I felt to be reasonable), and that " a young 
gal " stationed in the pantry with a bed-room candle, there never to desist 
from washing plates, would be indispensable. I said, what would be the 
expense of this young female, and Mrs. Crupp said she supposed 
eighteen-pence would neither make me nor break me. I said I supposed 
not ; and that was settled. Then Mrs. Crupp said, Now about the dinner. 

It was a remarkable instance of want of forethought on the part of the 
ironmonger who had made Mrs. Crupp's kitchen fire-place, that it was 
capable of cooking nothing but chops and mashed potatoes. As to a fish- 
kittle, Mrs. Crupp said, well ! would T only come and look at the range. 
She couldn't say fairer than that. Would I come and look at it ? As I 
should not have been much the wiser if I had looked at it, I declined, and 
said, " Never mind fish." But Mrs. Crupp said, Don't say that ; oysters 
was in, and why not them? So that was settled. Mrs. Crupp then 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 253 

said what she would recommend would be this. A pair of hot roast fowls 
— from the pastry-cook's ; a dish of stewed beef, with vegetables — from 
the pastry-cook's ; two little corner things, as a raised pie and a dish of 
kidneys — from the pastry-cook's ; a tart, and (if I liked) a shape of jelly 
— from the pastry-cook's. This, Mrs. Crupp said, would leave her at full 
liberty to concentrate her mind on the potatoes, and to serve up the cheese 
and celery as she could wish to see it done. 

I acted on Mrs. Crupp's opinion, and gave the order at the pastry-cook's 
myself. Walking along the Strand, afterwards, and observing a hard 
mottled substance in the window of a ham and beef shop, which resembled 
marble, but was labelled " Mock Turtle," I went in and bought a slab of 
it, which I have since seen reason to believe would have sufficed for fifteen 
people. This preparation, Mrs. Crupp, after some difficulty, consented to 
warm up ; and it shrunk so much in a liquid state, that we found it what 
Steerforth called " rather a tight fit " for four. 

These preparations happily completed, I bought a little dessert in Covent 
Garden Market, and gave a rather extensive order at a retail wine-merchant's 
in that vicinity. When I came home in the afternoon, and saw the bottles 
drawn up in a square on the pantry-floor, they looked so numerous (though 
there were two missing, which made Mrs. Crupp very uncomfortable), that 
I was absolutely frightened at them. 

One of Steerforth' s friends was named Grainger, and the other Markham. 
They were both very gay and lively fellows ; Grainger, something older 
than Steerforth ; Markham, youthful-looking, and I should say not more 
than twenty. I observed that the latter always spoke of himself indefinitely, 
as " a man," and seldom or never in the first person singular. 

" A man might get on very well here, Mr. Copperfield," said Markham — 
meaning himself. 

" It 's not a bad situation," said I, " and the rooms are really 
commodious." 

" I hope you have both brought appetites with you ? " said Steerforth. 

" Upon my honour," returned Markham, " town seems to sharpen a 
man's appetite. A man is hungry all day long. A man is perpetually 
eating." 

Being a little embarrassed at first, and feeling much too young to pre- 
side, I made Steerforth take the head of the table when dinner was 
announced, and seated myself opposite to him. Everything was very 
good ; we did not spare the wine ; and he exerted himself so brilliantly to 
make the thing pass off well, that there was no pause in our festivity. I 
was not quite such good company during dinner, as I could have wished 
to be, for my chair was opposite the door, and my attention was distracted 
by observing that the handy young man went out of the room very often, 
and that his shadow always presented itself, immediately afterwards, on the 
wall of the entry, with a bottle at its mouth. The " young gal " likewise 
occasioned me some uneasiness : not so much by neglecting to wash the 
plates, as by breaking them. For being of an inquisitive disposition, and 
unable to confine herself (as her positive instructions were) to the pantry, 
she was constantly peering in at us, and constantly imagining herself 
detected ; in which belief, she several times retired upon the plates (with 
which she had carefully paved the floor), and did a great deal of destruction. 

These, however, were small drawbacks, and easily forgotten when the 



254 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

cloth was cleared, and the dessert put on the table ; at which period of 
the entertainment the handy young man was discovered to be speechless. 
Giving him private directions to seek the society of Mrs. Crupp, and to 
remove the " young gal " to the basement also, I abandoned myself to 
enjoyment. 

I began, by being singularly cheerful and light-hearted ; all sorts of 
half-forgotten things to talk about, came rushing into my mind, and made 
me hold forth in a most unwonted manner. I laughed heartily at my 
own jokes, and everybody else's ; called Steerforth to order for not passing 
the wine ; made several engagements to go to Oxford ; announced that I 
meant to have a dinner party exactly like that, once a week until further 
notice ; and madly took so much snuff out of Grainger's box, that I was 
obliged to go into the pantry, and have a private fit of sneezing ten 
minutes long. 

I went on, by passing the wine faster and faster yet, and continually 
starting up with a corkscrew to open more wine, long before any was 
needed. I proposed Steerforth's health. I said he was my dearest 
friend, the protector of my boyhood, and the companion of my prime. I 
said I was delighted to propose his health. I said I owed him more 
obligations than I could ever repay, and held him in a higher admiration 
than I could ever express. I finished by saying, " I '11 give you Steerforth ! 
God bless him ! Hurrah ! " We gave him three times three, and another, 
and a good one to finish with. I broke my glass in going round the 
table to shake hands with him, and I said (in two words) " Steerforth- 
you'retheguidingstarofmy exist ence." 

I went on, by finding suddenly that somebody was in the middle of a 
song. Markham was the singer, and he sang " When the heart of a man 
is depressed with care." He said, when he had sung it, he would give us 
"Woman!" I took objection to that, and I couldn't allow it. I said it 
was not a respectful way of proposing the toast, and I would never 
permit that toast to be drunk in my house otherwise than as "The 
Ladies ! " I was very high with him, mainly I think because I saw 
Steerforth and Grainger laughing at me — or at him — or at both of us. 
He said a man was not to be dictated to. I said a man was. He said a 
man was not to be insulted, then. I said he was right there — never 
under my roof, where the Lares were sacred, and the laws of hospitality 
paramount. He said it was no derogation from a man's dignity to 
confess that I was a devilish good fellow. I instantly proposed his 
health. 

Somebody was smoking. We were all smoking. / was smoking, and 
trying to suppress a rising tendency to shudder. Steerforth had made a 
speech about me, in the course of which I had been affected almost to tears. 
I returned thanks, and hoped the present company would dine with me 
to-morrow, and the day after — each day at five o'clock, that we might 
enjoy the pleasures of conversation and society through a long evening. 
I felt called upon to propose an individual. I would give them my aunt. 
Miss Betsey Trotwood, the best of her sex ! 

Somebody was leaning out of my bed-room window, refreshing his 
forehead against the cool stone of the parapet, and feeling the air upon his 
face. It was myself. I was addressing myself as " Copperfield," and 



OF DAVID COPPEItFIELD. 255 

saying, "Why did you try to smoke? You might have known you 
couldn't do it." Now, somebody was unsteadily contemplating his features 
in the looking-glass. That was I too. I was very pale in the looking- 
glass ; my eyes had a vacant appearance ; and my hair — only my hair, 
nothing else — looked drunk. 

Somebody said to me, " Let us go to the theatre, Copperfield 1" There 
was no bed-room before me, but again the jingling table covered with 
glasses ; the lamp ; Grainger on my right hand, Markham on my left, and 
Steerforth opposite — all sitting in a mist, and a long way off. The 
theatre? To be sure. The very thing. Come along! But they must 
excuse me if I saw everybody out first, and turned the lamp off — in case 
of fire. 

Owing to some confusion in the dark, the door was gone. I was feeling 
for it in the window-curtains, when Steerforth, laughing, took me by the 
arm and led me out. We went down-stairs, one behind another. Near 
the bottom, somebody fell, and rolled down. Somebody else said it was 
Copperfield. I was angry at that false report, until, finding myself on my 
back in the passage, I began to think there might be some foundation 
for it. 

A very foggy night, with great rings round the lamps in the streets I 
There was an indistinct talk of its being wet. /considered it frosty. 
Steerforth dusted me under a lamp-post, and put my hat into shape, 
which somebody produced from somewhere in a most extraordinary 
manner, for I hadn't had it on before. Steerforth then said, " You are all 
right, Copperfield, are you not ? " and I told him, " Neverberrer." 

A man, sitting in a pigeon-hole-place, looked out of the fog, and took 
money from somebody, inquiring if I was one of the gentlemen paid for, 
and appearing rather doubtful (as I remember in the glimpse I had of 
him) whether to take the money for me or not. Shortly afterwards, we 
were very high up in a very hot theatre, looking down into a large 
pit„ that seemed to me to smoke; the people with whom it was 
crammed were so indistinct. There was a great stage, too, looking very 
clean and smooth after the streets ; and there were people upon it, talking 
about something or other, but not at all intelligibly. There was an 
abundance of bright lights, and there was music, and there were ladies 
down in the boxes, and I don't know what more. The whole building- 
looked to me, as if it were learning to swim; it conducted itself in such 
an unaccountable manner, when I tried to steady it. 

On somebody's motion, we resolved to go down-stairs to the dress- 
boxes, where the ladies were. A gentleman lounging, full dressed, on a 
sofa, with an opera-glass in his hand, passed before my view, and also my 
own figure at full length in a glass. Then I was being ushered into one 
of these boxes, and found myself saying something as I sat down, 
and people about me crying " Silence ! " to somebody, and ladies casting 
indignant glances at me, and — what ! yes ! — Agnes, sitting on the seat 
before me, in the same box, with a lady and gentleman beside her, 
whom I didn't know. I see her face now, better than I did then I dare 
say, with its indelible look of regret and wonder turned upon me. 

" Agnes ! " I said, thickly, " Lorblessmer ! Agnes ! " 
i " Hush ! Pray ! " she answered, I could not conceive why. " You 
disturb the company. Look at the stage ! " 



256 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

I tried, on her injunction, to fix it, and to hear something of what 
was going on there, but quite in vain. I looked at her again by-and-by, 
and saw her shrink into her corner, and put her gloved hand to her 
forehead. 

" Agnes ! " I said. " I'mafraidyou'renorwell." 

" Yes, yes. Do not mind me, Trotwood," she returned. " Listen ! 
Are you going away soon ? " 

" Amigoarawaysoo ? " I repeated. 

" Yes." 

I had a stupid intention of replying that I was going to wait, to hand 
her down-stairs. I suppose I expressed it, somehow; for after she had 
looked at me attentively for a little while, she appeared to understand, 
and replied in a low tone : 

" I know you will do as I ask you, if I tell you I am very earnest in it. 
Go away now, Trotwood, for my sake, and ask your friends to take you 
home." 

She had so far improved me, for the time, that though I was angry 
with her, I felt ashamed, and with a short " Goori ! " (which I intended 
for " Good night ! ") got up and went away. They followed, and I stepped 
at once out of the box- door into my bedroom, where only Steerforth was 
with me, helping me to undress, and where I was by turns telling him 
that Agnes was my sister, and adjuring him to bring the corkscrew, that I 
might open another bottle of wine. 

How somebody, lying in my bed, lay saying and doing all this over 
again, at cross purposes, in a feverish dream all night — the bed a 
rocking sea that was never still ! How, as that somebody slowly settled 
down into myself, did I begin to parch, and feel as if my outer covering 
of skin were a hard board ; my tongue the bottom of an empty kettle, 
furred with long service, and burning up over a slow fire ; the palms of 
my hands, hot plates of metal which no ice could cool ! 

But the agony of mind, the remorse, and shame I felt, when I be- 
came conscious next day ! My horror of having committed a thousand 
offences I had forgotten, and which nothing could ever expiate — my recol- 
lection of that indelible look which Agnes had given me — the torturing 
impossibility of communicating with her, not knowing, Beast that I was, 
how she came to be in London, or where she stayed — my disgust of the 
very sight of the room where the revel had been held — my racking head — 
the smell of smoke, the sight of glasses, the impossibility of going out, or 
even getting up ! Oh, what a day it was ! 

Oh, what an evening, when I sat down by my fire to a basin of mutton 
broth, dimpled all over with fat, and thought I was going the way of 
my predecessor, and should succeed to his dismal story as well as to 
Iris chambers, and had half a mind to rush express to Dover and reveal 
all ! What an evening, when Mrs. Crupp, coming in to take away the 
broth-basin, produced one kidney on a cheese-plate as the entire remains 
of yesterday's feast, and I was really inclined to fall upon her nankeen 
breast, and say, in heartfelt penitence, " Oh, Mrs. Crnpp, Mrs. Crupp, 
never mind the broken meats ! I am very miserable ! " — only that I 
doubted, even at that pass, if Mrs. Crupp were quite the sort of woman to 
confide in ! 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 257 



CHAPTEK XXY. 

GOOD AND BAD ANGELS. 

I was going out at my door on the morning after that deplorable day 
of headache, sickness, and repentance, with an odd confusion in my mind 
relative to the date of my dinner-party, as if a body of Titans had taken 
an enormous lever and pushed the day before yesterday some months 
back, when I saw a ticket-porter coming up-stairs, with a letter in his 
hand. He was taking his time about his errand, then ; but when he saw 
me on the top of the staircase, looking at him over the bannisters, he 
swung into a trot, and came up panting as if he had run himself into a 
state of exhaustion. 

" T. Copperfield, Esquire," said the ticket-porter, touching his hat with 
his little cane. 

I could scarcely lay claim to the name : I was so disturbed by the con- 
viction that the letter came from Agnes. However, I told him I was 
T. Copperfield, Esquire, and he believed it, and gave me the letter, which 
he said required an answer. I shut him out on the landing to wait for 
the answer, and went into my chambers again, in such a nervous state 
that I was fain to lay the letter down on my breakfast-table, and familiarise 
myself with the outside of it a little, before I could resolve to break 
the seal. 

I found, when I did open it, that it was a very kind note, containing no 
reference to my condition at the theatre. All it said, was, " My dear 
Trotwood. I am staying at the house of papa's agent, Mr. Waterbrook, 
in Ely-place, Holborn. Will you come and see me to-day, at any time 
you like to appoint ? Ever yours affectionately, Agnes." 

It took me such a long time to write an answer at all to my satis- 
faction, that I don't know what the ticket-porter can have thought, 
unless he thought I was learning to write. I must have written half a 
dozen answers at least. I began one, " How can I ever hope, my dear 
Agnes, to efface from your remembrance the disgusting impression " — 
there. I didn't like it, and then I tore it up. I began another, " Shakspeare 
has observed, my dear Agnes, how strange it is that a man should put an 
enemy into his mouth" — that reminded me of Markham, and it got no 
farther. I even tried poetry. I began one note, in a six-syllable line, " Oh do 
not remember" — but that associated itself with the fifth of November, and 
became an absurdity. After many attempts, I wrote, " My dear Agnes. 
Your letter is like you, and what could I say of it that would be higher 
praise than that ? I will come at four o'clock. Affectionately and sor- 
rowfully, T. C." With this missive (which I was in twenty minds at once 
about recalling, as soon as it was out of my hands), the ticket-porter at 
last departed. 

If the day were half as tremendous to any other professional gentleman 
in Doctors' Commons as it was to me, I sincerely believe he made some 

s 



258 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

expiation for his share in that rotten old ecclesiastical cheese. Although I 
left the office at half-past three, and was prowling about the place of 
appointment within a few minutes afterwards, the appointed time was 
exceeded by a full quarter of an hour, according to the clock of St. 
Andrew's, Holborn, before I could muster up sufficient desperation to pull 
the private bell-handle let into the left-hand door-post of Mi*. Waterbrook's 
house. 

The professional business of Mr. Waterbrook's establishment was done 
on the ground-floor, and the genteel business (of which there was a 
good deal) in the upper part of the building. I was shown into a pretty 
but rather close drawing-room, and there sat Agnes, netting a purse. 

She looked so quiet and good, and reminded me so strongly of my 
airy fresh school days at Canterbury, and the sodden, smoky, stupid 
wretch I had been the other night, that, nobody being by, I yielded to 
my self-reproach and shame, and — in short, made a fool of myself. I 
cannot deny that I shed tears. To this hour I am undecided whether it 
was upon the whole the wisest tking I could have done, or the most 
ridiculous. 

" If it had been any one but you, Agnes," said I, turning away my 
head, " I should not have minded it half so much. But that it should 
have been you who saw me ! I almost wish I had been dead, first." 

She put her hand — its touch was like no other hand — upon my arm 
for a moment ; and I felt so befriended and comforted, that I could not 
help moving it to my lips, and gratefully kissing it. 

"Sit down," said Agnes, cheerfully. "Don't be unhappy, Trotwood. 
If you cannot confidently trust me, whom will you trust ? " 

" Ah, Agnes ! " I returned. " You are my good Angel ! " 

She smiled rather sadly, I thought, and shook her head. 

" Yes, Agnes, my good Angel ! Always my good Angel ! " 

"If I were, indeed, Trotwood," she returned, " there is one thing 
that I should set my heart on very much." 

I looked at her inquiringly ; but already with a foreknowledge of her 
meaning. 

" On warning you," said Agnes, with a steady glance, " against your 
bad Angel." 

" My dear Agnes," I began, " if you mean Steerforth — " 

"I do, Trotwood," she returned. 

" Then, Agnes, you wrong him very much. He my bad Angel, or any- 
one's ! He, anything but a guide, a support, and a friend to me ! My 
dear Agnes ! Now, is it not unjust, and unlike you, to judge him from 
what you saw of me the other night ? " 

" I do not judge him from what I saw of you the other night," she 
quietly replied. 

"From what, then?" 

" From many things — trifles in themselves, but they do not seem to 
me to be so, when they are put together. I judge him, partly from 
your account of him, Trotwood, and your character, and the influence he 
has over you." 

There was always something in her modest voice that seemed to touch 
a chord within me, answering to that sound alone. It was always 
earnest j but when it was very earnest, as it was now, there was a thrill 



OF DAVID COPPEREIELD. 259 

in it that quite subdued me. I sat looking at her as she cast her eyes 
down on her work ; I sat seeming still to listen to her ; and Steerforth, 
in spite of all my attachment to him, darkened in that tone. 

" It is very bold in me," said Agnes, looking up again, " who have 
lived in such seclusion, and can know so little of the world, to give you 
my advice so confidently, or even to have this strong opinion. But I 
know in what it is engendered, Trotwood, — in how true a remembrance 
of our having grown up together, and in how true an interest in all 
relating to you. It is that which makes me bold. I am certain that what 
I say is right. I am quite sure it is. I feel as if it were some one else 
speaking to you, and not I, when I caution you that you have made a 
dangerous friend." 

Again I looked at her, again I listened to her after she was silent, and 
again his image, though it was still fixed in my heart, darkened. 

" I am not so unreasonable as to expect," said Agnes, resuming her 
usual tone, after a little while, "that you will, or that you can, at once, 
change any sentiment that has become a conviction to you ; least of all a 
sentiment that is rooted in your trusting disposition. You ought not 
hastily to do that. I only ask you, Trotwood, if you ever think of me — 
I mean" with a quiet smile, for I was going to interrupt her, and she 
knew why " as often as you think of me — to think of what I have said. 
Do you forgive me for all this ? " 

" I will forgive you, Agnes," I replied, "when you come to do 
Steerforth justice, and to like him as well as I do." 

" Not until then ? " said Agnes. 

I saw a passing shadow on her face when I made this mention of him, 
but she returned my smile, and we were again as unreserved in our 
mutual confidence as of old. 

" And when, Agnes," said I, " will you forgive me the other night ?" 

"When I recall it," said Agnes. 

She would have dismissed the subject so, but I was too full of it to 
allow that, and insisted on telling her how it happened that I had dis- 
graced myself, and what chain of accidental circumstances had had the 
theatre for its final link. It was a great relief to me to do this, and to 
enlarge on the obligation that I owed to Steerforth for his care of me 
when I was unable to take care of myself. 

" You must not forget," said Agnes, calmly changing the conversation 
as soon as I had concluded, " that you are always to tell me, not only 
when you fall into trouble, but when you fall in love. Who has succeeded 
to Miss Larkins, Trotwood ? " 

"No one, Agnes." 

"Some one, Trotwood," said Agnes, laughing, and holding up her 
finger. 

" No, Agnes, upon my word ! There is a lady, certainly, at Mrs. 
Steerforth's house, who is very clever, and whom I like to talk to — Miss 
Dartle — but I don't adore her." 

Agnes laughed again at her own penetration, and told me that if I were 
faithful to her in my confidence she thought she should keep a little register 
of my violent attachments, with the date, duration, and termination of 
each, like the table of the reigns of the kings and queens, in the History 
of England. Then she asked me if I had seen Uriah. 

s 2 



260 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Uriah Heep ? " said I. " No. Is lie in London ? " 

"He comes to the office down-stairs, every day," returned Agnes. 
" He was in London a week before me. I am afraid on disagreeable 
business, Trotwood." 

" On some business that makes you uneasy, Agnes, I see," said I. 
"What can that be?" 

Agnes laid aside her work, and replied, folding her hands upon one 
another, and looking pensively at me out of those beautiful soft eyes of hers : 

" I believe he is going to enter into partnership with papa." 

" What ? Uriah? That mean, fawning fellow, worm himself into such 
promotion?" I cried, indignantly. "Have you made no remonstrance 
about it, Agnes ? Consider what a connexion it is likely to be. You 
must speak out. You must not allow your father to take such a mad 
step. You must prevent it, Agnes, while there 's time." 

Still looking at me, Agnes shook her head while I was speaking, with 
a faint smile at my warmth : and then replied : 

"You remember our last conversation about papa? It was not long 
after that — not more than two or three days — when he gave me the first 
intimation of what I tell you. It was sad to see him struggling between 
his desire to represent it to me as a matter of choice on his part, and his 
inability to conceal that it was forced upon him. I felt very sorry." 

" Forced upon him, Agnes ! Who forces it upon him ? " 

" L T riah," she replied, after a moment's hesitation, " has made himself 
indispensable to papa. He is subtle and watchful. He has mastered 
papa's weaknesses, fostered them, and taken advantage of them, until — to 
say all that I mean in a word, Trotwood, until papa is afraid of him." 

There was more that she might have said ; more that she knew, or that 
she suspected ; I clearly saw. I could not give her pain by asking what 
it was, for I knew that she withheld it from me, to spare her father. 
It had long been going on to this, I was sensible : yes, I could not but 
feel, on the least reflection, that it had been going on to this for a long 
time. I remained silent. 

" His ascendancy over papa," said Agnes, " is very great. He professes 
humility and gratitude — with truth, perhaps : I hope so — but Ms position 
is really one of power, and I fear he makes a hard use of his power." 

I said he w T as a hound, which, at the moment, was a great satisfaction 
to me. 

" At the time I speak of, as the time when papa spoke to me," pursued 
Agnes, "he had told papa that he was going away; that he was very 
sorry, and unwilling to leave, but that he had better prospects. Papa 
was very much depressed then, and more bowed down by care than ever 
you or I have seen him ; but he seemed relieved by this expedient of the 
partnership, though at the same time he seemed hurt by it and ashamed 
of it." 

" And how did you receive it, Agnes ? " 

" I did, Trotwood," she replied, " what I hope was right. Feeling 
sure that it was necessary for papa's peace that the sacrifice should be 
made, I entreated him to make it. I said it would lighten the load of 
his life — I hope it will ! — and that it would give me increased opportuni- 
ties of being his companion. Oh, Trotwood ! " cried Agnes, putting her 
hands before her face, as her tears started on it. "I almost feel as if I 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 261 

had been papa's enemy, instead of his loving child. Tor I know how he 
has altered, in his devotion to me. I know how he has narrowed the 
circle of his sympathies and duties, in the concentration of his whole 
mind upon me. I know what a multitude of things he has shut out 
for my sake, and how his anxious thoughts of me have shadowed his life, 
and weakened his strength and energy, by turning them always upon one 
idea. If I could ever set this right ! If I could ever work out his restoration, 
as I have so innocently been the cause of his decline ! " 

I had never before seen Agnes cry. I had seen tears in her eyes when 
I had brought new honours home from school, and I had seen them there 
when we last spoke about her father, and I had seen her turn her gentle 
head aside when we took leave of one another ; but I had never seen 
her grieve like this. It made me so sorry that I could only say, in a 
foolish, helpless manner, " Pray, Agnes, don't ! Don't, my dear sister !' 

But Agnes was too superior to me in character and purpose, as I know 
well now, whatever I might know or not know then, to be long in need 
of my entreaties. The beautiful, calm manner, which makes her so different 
in my remembrance from everybody else, came back again, as if a cloud 
had passed from a serene sky. 

"We are not likely to remain alone much longer," said Agnes, "and 
while I have an opportunity, let me earnestly entreat you, Trotwood, to 
be friendly to Uriah. Don't repel him. Don't resent (as I think you 
have a general disposition to do) what may be uncongenial to you in him. 
He may not deserve it, for we know no certain ill of him. In any case, 
think first of papa and me ! " 

Agnes had no time to say more, for the room-door opened, and Mrs. 
Waterbrook, who was a large lady — or who wore a large dress : I don't 
exactly know which, for I don't know which was dress and which was 
lady — came sailing in. I had a dim recollection of having seen her at the 
theatre, as if I had seen her in a pale magic lantern ; but she appeared to 
remember me perfectly, and still to suspect me of being in a state of 
intoxication. 

Finding by degrees, however, that I was sober, and (I hope) that 
I was a modest young gentleman, Mrs. Waterbrook softened towards 
me considerably, and inquired, firstly, if I went much into the parks, and 
secondly, if I went much into society. On my replying to both these 
questions in the negative, it occurred to me that I fell again in her 
good opinion ; but she concealed the fact gracefully, and invited me to 
dinner next day. I accepted the invitation, and took my leave; making 
a call on Uriah in the office as I went out, and leaving a card for him in 
his absence. 

When I went to dinner next day, and, on the street-door being 
opened, plunged into a vapour-bath of haunch of mutton, I divined that 
I was not the only guest ; for I immediately identified the ticket-porter 
in disguise, assisting the family servant, and waiting at the foot of the 
stairs to carry up my name. He looked, to the best of his ability, when 
he asked me for it confidentially, as if he had never seen me before ; but 
well did I know him, and well did he know me. Conscience made cowards 
of us both. 

I found Mr. Waterbrook to be a middle-aged gentleman, with a short 
throat, and a good deal of shirt-collar, who only wanted a black nose to 



262 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

be the portrait of a pug-dog. He told me lie was happy to have the 
honour of making my acquaintance ; and when I had paid my homage to 
Mrs. Waterbrook, presented me, with much ceremony, to a very awful 
lady in a black velvet dress, and a great black velvet hat, whom I remember 
as looking like a near relation of Hamlet's — say his aunt. 

Mrs. Henry Spiker was this lady's name ; and her husband was there 
too : so cold a man, that his head, instead of being grey, seemed to be 
sprinkled with hoar-frost. Immense deference was shown to the Henry 
Spikers, male and female ; which Agnes told me was on account of Mr. 
Henry Spiker being solicitor to something or to somebody, I forget what 
or which, remotely connected with the Treasury. 

I found Uriah Heep among the company, in a suit of black, and in 
deep humility. He told me, when I shook hands with him, that he was 
proud to be noticed by me, and that he really felt obliged to me for my 
condescension. I could have wished he had been less obliged to me, for 
he hovered about me in his gratitude all the rest of the evening ; and 
whenever I said a word to Agnes, was sure, with his shadowless eyes and 
cadaverous face, to be looking gauntly down upon us from behind. 

There were other guests — all iced for the occasion, as it struck me, like 
the wine. But, there was one who attracted my attention before he 
came in, on account of my hearing him announced as Mr. Traddles ! My 
mind flew back to Salem House ; and could it be Tommy, I thought, who 
used to draw the skeletons ! 

I looked for Mr. Traddles with unusual interest. He was a sober, 
steady-looking young man of retiring manners, with a comic head of 
hair, and eyes that were rather wide open ; and he got into an obscure 
corner so soon, that I had some difficulty in making him out. At length 
I had a good view of him, and either my vision deceived me, or it was 
the old unfortunate Tommy. 

I made my way to Mr. Waterbrook, and said, that I believed I had 
the pleasure of seeing an old schoolfellow there. 

" Indeed ? " said Mr. Waterbrook, surprised. " You are too young to 
have been at school with Mi*. Henry Spiker ? " 

" Oh, I don't mean him ! " I returned. " I mean the gentleman 
named Traddles." 

" Oh ! Aye, aye ! Indeed ! " said my host, with much diminished 
interest. "Possibly." 

" If it 's really the same person," said I, glancing towards him, " it was 
at a place called Salem House where we were together, and he was an 
excellent fellow." 

" Oh yes. Traddles is a good fellow," returned my host, nodding 
his head with an air of toleration. " Traddles is quite a good fellow." 

" It 's a curious coincidence," said I. 

" It is really," returned my host, " quite a coincidence, that Traddles 
should be here at all : as Traddles was only invited this morning, when 
the place at table, intended to be occupied by Mrs. Henry Spiker's brother, 
became vacant, in consequence of his indisposition, A very gentlemanly 
man, Mrs. Henry Spiker's brother, Mr. Copperfield." 

I murmured an assent, which was full of feeling, considering that I 
knew nothing at all about him ; and I inquired what Mr. Traddles was by 
profession. 




s 



•1 



X. 



^ 



^ijiffjM 



OP DAVID COPPERPIELD. 263 

" Traddles," returned Mr. Waterbrook, "is a young man reading for the 
bar. Yes. He is quite a good fellow — nobody's enemy but his own." 

* Is he his own enemy ? " said I, sorry to hear this. 

" Well," returned Mr. Waterbrook, pursing up his mouth, and playing 
with his watch-chain, in a comfortable, prosperous sort of way. " I 
should say he was one of those men who stand in their own light. Yes, 
I should say he would never, for example, be worth five hundred pound. 
Traddles was recommended to me, by a professional friend. Oh yes. 
Yes. He has a kind of talent, for drawing briefs, and stating a case in 
writing, plainly. I am able to throw something in Traddles's way, in the 
course of the year ; something — for him — considerable. Oh yes. Yes." 

I was much impressed by the extremely comfortable and satisfied 
manner, in which Mr. Waterbrook delivered himself of this little word 
" Yes," every now and then. There was wonderful expression in it. It 
completely conveyed the idea of a man who had been born, not to say 
with a silver spoon, but with a scaling-ladder, and had gone on mounting 
all thejheights of life one after another, until now he looked, from the top 
of the fortifications, with the eye of a philosopher and a patron, on the 
people down in the trenches. 

My reflections on this theme were still in progress when dinner was 
announced. Mr. Waterbrook went down with Hamlet's aunt. Mr. Henry 
Spiker took Mrs. Waterbrook. Agnes, whom I should have liked to take 
myself, was given to a simpering fellow with weak legs. Uriah, 
Traddles, and I, as the junior part of the company, went down last, how 
we could. I was not so vexed at losing Agnes as I might have been 
since it gave me an opportunity of making myself known to Traddles on 
the stairs, who greeted me with great fervor : while Uriah writhed with 
such obtrusive satisfaction and self-abasement, that I could gladly have 
pitched him over the bannisters. 

Traddles and I were separated at table, being billeted in two remote 
corners : he in the glare of a red velvet lady ; I, in the gloom of Hamlet's 
aunt. The dinner was very long, and the conversation was about the 
Aristocracy — and Blood. Mrs. Waterbrook repeatedly told us, that if she 
had a weakness, it was Blood. 

It occurred to me several times that we should have got on better, if we 
had not been quite so genteel. We were so exceedingly genteel, that our 
scope was very limited. A Mr. and Mrs. Gulpidge were of the party, who 
had something to do at second-hand (at least, Mr. Gulpidge had) with 
the law business of the Bank ; and what with the Bank, and what with the 
Treasury, we were as exclusive as the Court Circular. To mend the matter, 
Hamlet's aunt had the family failing of indulging in soliloquy, and held 
forth in a desultory manner, by herself, on every topic that was introduced. 
These were few enough, to be sure; but as we always fell back upon 
Blood, she had as wide a field for abstract speculation as her nephew himself. 

We might have been a party of Ogres, the conversation assumed such a 
sanguine complexion. 

" I confess I am of Mrs. Waterbrook's opinion," said Mr. Waterbrook, 
with his wine-glass at his eye. " Other things are all very well in their 
way, but give me Blood ! " 

<c Oh ! There is nothing," observed Hamlet's aunt, " so satisfactory to 
one ! There is nothing that is so much one's beau-ideal of — of all that sort 



264 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

of thing, speaking generally. There are some low minds (not many, I am 
happy to believe, but there are some) that would prefer to do what I 
should call bow down before idols. Positively Idols ! Before services, 
intellect, and so on. But these are intangible points. Blood is not so. 
We see Blood in a nose, and we know it. We meet with it in a chin, 
and we say, ' There it is ! That's Blood !' It is an actual matter of fact. 
We point it out. It admits of no doubt." 

The simpering fellow with the weak legs, who had taken Agnes down, 
stated the question more decisively yet, I thought. 

" Oh, you know, deuce take it," said this gentleman, looking round the 
board with an imbecile smile, " we can't forego Blood, you know. We 
must have Blood, you know. Some young fellows, you know, may be 
a little behind their station, perhaps, in point of education and behaviour, 
and may go a little wrong, you know, and get themselves and other people 
into a variety of fixes — and all that — but deuce take it, it 's delightful to 
reflect that they 've got Blood in 'em ! Myself, I 'd rather at any time be 
knocked down by a man who had got Blood in him, than I 'd be picked 
up by a man who hadn't !" 

This sentiment, as compressing the general question into a nutshell, 
gave the utmost satisfaction, and brought the gentleman into great notice 
until the ladies retired. After that, I observed that Mr. Gulpidge and 
Mr. Henry Spiker, who had hitherto been very distant, entered into a 
defensive alliance against us, the common enemy, and exchanged a myste- 
rious dialogue across the table for our defeat and overthrow. 

" That affair of the first bond for four thousand five hundred pounds 
has not taken the course that was expected, Gulpidge," said Mr. Henry 
Spiker. 

" Do you mean the D. of A.'s? " said Mr. Spiker. 
« The C. of B.'s?" said Mr. Gulpidge. 
Mr. Spiker raised his eye-brows, and looked much concerned. 
" When the question was referred to Lord — I needn't name him," 
said Mr. Gulpidge, checking himself — 
" I understand," said Mr. Spiker, " N." 

Mr. Gulpidge darkly nodded — " was referred to him, his answer was, 
' Money, or no release.' " 

" Lord bless my soul !" cried Mr. Spiker. 

"'Money, or no release,'" repeated Mr. Gulpidge firmly. "The 
next in reversion — you understand me ?" 

" K. " said Mr. Spiker, with an ominous look. 

" — K. then positively refused to sign. He was attended at New- 
market for that purpose, and he point-blank refused to do it." 
Mr. Spiker was so interested, that he became quite stony. 
" So the matter rests at this hour," said Mr. Gulpidge, throwing him- 
self back in his chair. " Our friend Waterbrook will excuse me if I 
forbear to explain myself generally, on account of the magnitude of the 
interests involved." 

Mr. Waterbrook was only too happy, as it appeared to me, to have such 
interests, and such names, even hinted at, across his table. He assumed 
an expression of gloomy intelligence (though I am persuaded he knew 
no more about the discussion than I did), and highly approved of the 
discretion that had been observed. Mr. Spiker, after the receipt of such 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 265 

a confidence, naturally desired to favor his friend with a confidence of his 
own; therefore the foregoing dialogue was succeeded by another, in 
which it was Mr. Gulpidge's turn to be surprised, and that by another in 
which the surprise came round to Mr. Spiker's turn again, and so on, 
turn and turn about. All this time we, the outsiders, remained oppressed 
by the tremendous interests involved in the conversation ; and our host 
regarded us with pride, as the victims of a salutary awe and astonishment. 

I was very glad indeed to get up-stairs to Agnes, and to talk with her 
in a corner, and to introduce Traddles to her, who was shy, but agreeable, 
and the same good-natured creature still. As he was obliged to leave 
early, on account of going away next morning for a month, I had not 
nearly so much conversation with him as I could have wished ; but we 
exchanged addresses, and promised ourselves the pleasure of another 
meeting when he should come back to town. He was greatly interested 
to hear that I knew Steerforth, and spoke of him with such warmth that 
I made him tell Agnes what he thought of him. But Agnes only looked 
at me the while, and very slightly shook her head when only I observed her. 

As she was not among people with whom I believed she could be very 
much at home, I was almost glad to hear that she was going away within 
a few days, though I was sorry at the prospect of parting from her again 
so soon. This caused me to remain until all the company were gone. 
Conversing with her, and hearing her sing, was such a delightful reminder 
to me of my happy life in the grave old house she had made so beautiful, 
that I could have remained there half the night ; but, having no excuse 
for staying any longer, when the lights of Mr. Waterbrook's society were 
all snuffed out, I took my leave very much against my inclination. I felt 
then, more than ever, that she was my better Angel ; and if I thought of 
her sweet face and placid smile, as though they had shone on me from 
some removed being, like an Angel, I hope I thought no harm. 

I have said that the company were all gone ; but I ought to have ex- 
cepted Uriah, whom I don't include in that denomination, and who had 
never ceased to hover near us. He was close behind me when I went 
down-stairs. He was close beside me, when I walked away from the 
house, slowly fitting his long skeleton fingers into the still longer fingers 
of a great Guy Fawkes pair of gloves. 

It was in no disposition for Uriah's company, but in remembrance of 
the entreaty Agnes had made to me, that I asked him if he would come 
home to my rooms, and have some coffee. 

"Oh, really, Master Copperfield," he rejoined, — "I beg your pardon, 
Mister Copperfield, but the other comes so natural, — I don't like that 
you should put a constraint upon yourself to ask a numble person like 
me to your ouse." 

" There is no constraint in the case," said I. " Will you come ? " 

" I should like to, very much," replied Uriah, with a writhe. 

" Well, then, come along ! " said I. 

I could not help being rather short with him, but he appeared not to 
mind it. We went the nearest way, without conversing much upon the 
road ; and he was so humble in respect of those scarecrow gloves, that 
he was still putting them on, and seemed to have made no advance in that 
labour, when we got to my place. 

I led him up the dark stairs, to prevent his knocking his head against 



26 Q THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

anything, and really his damp cold hand felt so like a frog in mine, that 
I was tempted to drop it and rnn away. Agnes and hospitality pre- 
vailed, however, and I conducted him to my fireside. When I righted 
my candles, he fell into meek transports with the room that was revealed 
to him ; and when I heated the coffee in an unassuming block-tin vessel, 
in which Mrs. Crupp delighted to prepare it (chiefly, I believe, because 
it was not intended for the purpose, being a shaving-pot, and because 
there was a patent invention of great price mouldering away in the 
pantry), he professed so much emotion, that I could joyfully have scalded 
him. 

"Oh, really, Master Copperfield, — I mean Mister Copperfield," said 
Uriah, "to see you waiting upon me is what I never could have ex- 
pected ! But, one way and another, so many things happen to me which 
I never could have expected, I am sure, in my umble station, that it 
seems to rain blessings on my ed. You have heard something, I des-say, 
of a change in my expectations, Master Copperfield, — I should say, Mister 
Copperfield ? " 

As he sat on my sofa, with his long knees drawn up under his coffee- 
cup, his hat and gloves upon the ground close to him, his spoon going 
softly round and round, his shadowless red eyes, which looked as if they 
had scorched their lashes off, turned towards me without looking at me, 
the disagreeable dints I have formerly described in his nostrils coming 
and going with his breath, and a snaky undulation pervading his frame 
from his chin to his boots, I decided in my own mind that I disliked him 
intensely. It made me very uncomfortable to have him for a guest, for I 
was young then, and unused to disguise what I so strongly felt. 

" You have heard something, I des-say, of a change in my expectations, 
Master Copperfield, — I should say, Mister Copperfield ? " observed Uriah. 

"Yes," said I, "something." 

" Ah ! I thought Miss Agnes would know of it ! " he quietly returned. 
" I 'm glad to find Miss Agnes knows of it. Oh, thank you, Master — 
Mister Copperfield ! " 

I could have thrown my bootjack at him (it lay ready on the rug), for 
having entrapped me into the disclosure of anything concerning Agnes, 
however immaterial. But I only drank my coffee. 

"What a prophet you have shown yourself, Mister Copperfield!" 
pursued Uriah. " Dear me, what a prophet you have proved yourself to 
be ! Don't you remember saying to me once, that perhaps I should be 
a partner in Mr. Wickfield's business, and perhaps it might be Wickfield 
and Heep ! You may not recollect it ; but when a person is umble, 
Master Copperfield, a person treasures such things up ! " 

" I recollect talking about it," said I, " though I certainly did not think 
it very likely then." 

" Oh ! who would have thought it likely, Mister Copperfield ! " returned 
Uriah, enthusiastically, "lam sure I didn't myself. I recollect saying 
with my own lips that I was much too umble. So I considered myself 
really and truly." 

He sat, with that carved grin on his face, looking at the fire, as I looked 
at him. 

" But the umblest persons, Master Copperfield," he presently resumed, 
" may be the instilments of good, I am glad to think I have been the 



OP DAVID COPPEIIPIELD. 267 

instrument of good to Mr. Wickfield, and that I may be more so. Oh 
what a worthy man he is, Mister Copperfield, but how imprudent he has 
been ! " 

" I am sorry to hear it," said I. I could not help adding, rather 
pointedly, " on all accounts." 

" Decidedly so, Mister Copperfield," replied Uriah. " On all accounts. 
Miss Agnes's above all ! You don't remember your own eloquent expres- 
sions, Master Copperfield; but I remember how you said one day that 
everybody must admire her, and how I thanked you for it ! You have 
forgot that, T have no doubt, Master Copperfield ? " 

" No," said I, drily. 

" Oh how glad I am, you have not ! " exclaimed Uriah. " To think 
that you should be the first to kindle the sparks of ambition in my umble 
breast, and that you 've not forgot it ! Oh ! — Would you excuse me 
asking for a cup more coffee ? " 

Something in the emphasis he laid upon the kindling of those sparks, 
and something in the glance he directed at me as he said it, had made me 
start as if I had seen him illuminated by a blaze of light. Recalled by his 
request, preferred in quite another tone of voice, I did the honors of the 
shaving-pot ; but I did them with an unsteadiness of hand, a sudden sense 
of being no match for him, and a perplexed suspicious anxiety as to what 
he might be going to say next, which I felt could not escape his observation. 

He said nothing at all. He stirred his coffee round and round, he sipped 
it, he felt his chin softly with his grisly hand, he looked at the fire, he looked 
about the room, he gasped rather than smiled at me, he writhed and undu- 
lated about, in his deferential servility, he stirred and sipped again, but he 
left the renewal of the conversation to me. 

"So, Mr. Wickfield," said I, at last, "who is worth five hundred of 
you — or me ;" for my life, I think I could not have helped dividing that 
part of the sentence with an awkward jerk ; " has been imprudent, has 
he, Mr.Heep?" 

" Oh very imprudent indeed, Master Copperfield," returned Uriah, 
sighing modestly. " Oh very much so ! But I wish you 'd call me 
Uriah, if you please. It 's like old times." 

" Well ! Uriah," said I, bolting it out with some difficulty. 

M Thank you ! " he returned,, with fervor. " Thank you, Master Copper- 
field ! It 's like the blowing of old breezes or the ringing of old 
bellses to hear you say Uriah. I beg your pardon. Was I making any 
observation ? " 

" About Mr. Wickfield," I suggested. 

"Oh! Yes, truly," said Uriah. "Ah! Great imprudence, Master 
Copperfield. It 's a topic that I wouldn't touch upon, to any soul but 
you. Even to you I can only touch upon it, and no more. If any one 
else had been in my place during the last few years, by this time he would 
have had Mr. Wickfield (oh, what a worthy man he is, Master Copperfield, 
too !) under his thumb. Un — der — his thumb," said Uriah, very slowly, 
as he stretched out his cruel-looking hand above my table, and pressed his 
own thumb down upon it, until it shook, and shook the room. 

If I had been obliged to look at him with his splay foot on Mr. Wick- 
field's head, I think I could scarcely have hated him more. 

" Oh dear, yes, Master Copperfield," he proceeded, in a soft voice, most 



268 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

remarkably contrasting with the action of his thumb, which did not 
diminish its hard pressure in the least degree, " there 's no doubt of it. 
There would have been loss, disgrace, I don't know what all. Mr. 
Wickfield knows it. I am the umble instrument of umbly serving him, 
and he puts me on an eminence I hardly could have hoped to reach. How 
thankful should I be ! " With his face turned towards me, as he finished, 
but without looking at me, he took his crooked thumb off the spot 
where he had planted it, and slowly and thoughtfully scraped his lank jaw 
with it, as if he were shaving himself. 

I recollect well how indignantly my heart beat, as I saw his crafty face, 
with the appropriately red light of the fire upon it, preparing for some- 
thing else. 

" Master Copperfield," he began — " but am I keeping you up ? " 

" You are not keeping me up. I generally go to bed late." 

" Thank you, Master Copperfield ! I have risen from my umble 
station since first you used to address me, it is true ; but I am umble still. 
I hope I never shall be otherwise than umble. You will not think the 
worse of my umbleness, if I make a little confidence to you, Master 
Copperfield*? Will you?" 

" Oh, no," said I, with an effort. 

" Thank you ! " He took out his pocket-handkerchief, and began wiping 
the palms of his hands. " Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield — " 

« Well, Uriah ? " 

" Oh, how pleasant to be called Uriah, spontaneously ! " he cried ; and 
gave himself a jerk, like a convulsive fish. " You thought her looking 
very beautiful to-night, Master Copperfield ? " 

" I thought her looking as she always does : superior, in all respects, to 
every one around her," I returned. 

" Oh, thank you ! It 's so true ! " he cried. " Oh, thank you very 
much for that ! " 

"Not at all," I said, loftily. "There is no reason why you should 
thank me." 

" Why that, Master Copperfield," said Uriah, " is, in fact, the confi- 
dence that I am going to take the liberty of reposing. Umble as I am," 
he wiped his hands harder, and looked at them and at the fire by turns, 
" umble as my mother is, and lowly as our poor but honest roof has ever 
been, the image of Miss Agnes (I don't mind trusting you with my secret, 
Master Copperfield, for I have always overflowed towards you since the 
first moment I had the pleasure of beholding you in a poney-shay) has been 
in my breast for years. Oh, Master Copperfield, with what a pure 
affection do I love the ground my Agnes walks on ! " 

I believe I had a delirious idea of seizing the red-hot poker out of the 
fire, and running him through with it. It went from me with a shock, 
like a ball fired from a rifle : but the image of Agnes, outraged by so much 
as a thought of this red-headed animal's, remained in my mind when I 
looked at him, sitting all awry as if his mean soul griped his body, and 
made me giddy. He seemed to swell and grow before my eyes ; the room 
seemed full of the echoes of his voice ; and the strange feeling (to which, 
perhaps, no one is quite a stranger) that all this had occurred before, at 
some indefinite time, and that I knew what he was going to say next, took 
possession of me. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 269 

A timely observation of the sense of power that there was in his face, 
did more to bring back to my remembrance the entreaty of Agnes, in its 
full force, than any effort I could have made. I asked him, with a better 
appearance of composure than I could have thought possible a minute 
before, whether he had made his feelings known to Agnes. 

" Oh, no, Master Copperfield ! " he returned ; " oh dear, no ! Not to 
any one but you. You see I am only just emerging from my lowly 
station. I rest a good deal of hope on her observing how useful I am to 
her father (for I trust to be very useful to him, indeed, Master Copperfield), 
and how I smooth the way for him, and keep him straight. She 's so much 
attached to her father, Master Copperfield (oh what a lovely thing it is in a 
daughter !), that I think she may come, on his account, to be kind to me." 

I fathomed the depth of the rascal's whole scheme, and understood 
why he laid it bare. 

" If you '11 have the goodness to keep my secret, Master Copperfield," 
he pursued, " and not, in general, to go against me, I shall take it as a 
particular favor. You wouldn't wish to make unpleasantness. I know 
what a friendly heart you 've got ; but having only known me on my umble 
footing (on my umblest, I should say, for I am very umble still), you might, 
unbeknown, go against me rather, with my Agnes. I call her mine, you 
see, Master Copperfield. There 's a song that says, c I 'd crowns resign, 
to call her mine ! ' 1 hope to do it, one of these days." 

Dear Agnes ! So much too loving and too good for any one that 
I could think of, was it possible that she was reserved to be the wife of 
such a wretch as this ! 

" There 's no hurry at present, you know, Master Copperfield," Uriah 
proceeded, in his slimy way, as I sat gazing at him, with this thought in 
my mind. " My Agnes is very young still ; and mother and me will have 
to work our way upards, and make a good many new arrangements, 
before it would be quite convenient. So I shall have time gradually to 
make her familiar with my hopes, as opportunities offer. Oh, I 'm so 
much obliged to you for this confidence ! Oh, it 's such a relief, you can't 
think, to know that you understand our situation, and are certain (as you 
wouldn't wish to make unpleasantness in the family) not to go against me ! " 

He took the hand which I dared not withhold, and having given it a 
damp squeeze, referred to his pale-faced watch. 

"Dear me!" he said, "it's past one. The moments slip away so, 
in the confidence of old times, Master Copperfield, that it's almost 
half-past one ! " 

I answered that I had thought it was later. Not that I had really 
thought so, but because my conversational powers were effectually scattered. 

" Dear me ! " he said, considering. " The ouse that I am stopping at — 
a sort of a private hotel and boarding ouse, Master Copperfield, near the 
New River ed — will have gone to bed these two hours." 

" I am sorry," I returned, " that there is only one bed here, and 
that I—" 

" Oh, don't think of mentioning beds, Master Copperfield ! " he rejoined 
ecstatically, drawing up one leg. " But would you have any objections 
to my laying down before the fire? " 

" If it comes to that," I said, "pray take my bed, and I'll He down 
before the fire." 



270 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

His repudiation of this offer was almost shrill enough, in the excess of 
its surprise and humility, to have penetrated to the ears of Mrs. Crupp, 
then sleeping, I suppose , in a distant chamber, situated at about the 
level of low water mark, soothed in her slumbers by the ticking of an 
incorrigible clock, to which she always referred me when we had any little 
difference on the score of punctuality, and which was never less than 
three quarters of an hour too slow, and had always been put right in the 
morning by the best authorities. As no arguments I could urge, in my 
bewildered condition, had the least effect upon his modesty in inducing 
him to accept my bed-room, I was obliged to make the best arrangements 
I could, for his repose before the fire. The mattress of the sofa (which 
was a great deal too short for his lank figure), the sofa pillows, a blanket, 
the table-cover, a clean breakfast-cloth, and a great coat, made him a bed 
and covering, for which he was more than thankful. Having lent him a 
nightcap, which he put on at once, and in which he made such an awful 
figure that I have never worn one since, I left him to his rest. 

I never shall forget that night. I never shall forget how I turned and 
tumbled; how I wearied myself with thinking about Agnes and this 
creature ; how I considered what could I do, and what ought I to do ; 
how I could come to no other conclusion than that the best course for 
her peace, was to do nothing, and to keep to myself what I had heard. 
If I went to sleep for a few moments, the image of Agnes with her 
tender eyes, and of her father looking fondly on her, as I had so often 
seen him look, arose before me with appealing faces, and filled me with 
vague terrors. When I awoke, the recollection that Uriah was lying in 
the next room sat heavy on me like a waking night-mare ; and oppressed 
me with a leaden dread, as if I had had some meaner quality of devil for 
a lodger. 

The poker got into my dozing thoughts besides, and wouldn't come out. 
I thought, between sleeping and waking, that it was still red hot, and I 
had snatched it out of the fire, and run him through the body. I was so 
haunted at last by the idea, though I knew there was nothing in it, that 
I stole into the next room to look at him. There I saw him, lying on his 
back, with his legs extending to I don't know where, gurglings taking 
place in his throat, stoppages in his nose, and his mouth open like a post- 
office. He was so much worse in reality than in my distempered fancy, 
that afterwards I was attracted to him in very repulsion, and could not 
help wandering in and out every half hour or so, and taking another look 
at him. Still, the long, long night seemed heavy and hopeless as ever, 
and no promise of day was in the murky sky. 

When I saw him going down stairs early in the morning (for, thank 
Heaven ! he would not stay to breakfast), it appeared to me as if the night 
was going away in his person. When I went out to the Commons, I 
charged Mrs. Crupp with particular directions to leave the windows open, 
that my sitting-room might be aired, and purged of his presence. 



OF DAVID CQPPERFIELD 271 



CHAPTER XXYI. 

I FALL INTO CAPTIVITY. 

I saw no more of Uriah Heep, until the day when Agnes left town. I 
was at the coach-office to take leave of her and see her go ; and there was 
he, returning to Canterbury by the same conveyance. It was some small 
satisfaction to me to observe his spare, short-waisted, high-shouldered, 
mulberry-coloured great-coat perched up, in company with an umbrella 
like a small tent, on the edge of the back seat on the roof, while Agnes 
was, of course, inside ; but what I underwent in my efforts to be friendly 
with him, while Agnes looked on, perhaps deserved that little recompense. 
At the coach-window, as at the dinner-party, he hovered about us without 
a moment's intermission, like a great vulture : gorging himself on every 
syllable that I said to Agnes, or Agnes said to me. 

In the state of trouble into which his disclosure by my fire had thrown 
me, I had thought very much of the words Agnes had used in reference to 
the partnership. " I did what I hope was right. Feeling sure that it 
was necessary for papa's peace that the sacrifice should be made, I entreated 
him to make it." A miserable foreboding that she would yield to, and 
sustain herself by, the same feeling in reference to any sacrifice for his 
sake, had oppressed me ever since. I knew how she loved him. I knew 
what the devotion of her nature was. I knew from her own lips that she 
regarded herself as the innocent cause of his errors, and as owing him a 
great debt she ardently desired to pay. I had no consolation in seeing 
how different she was from this detestable Eufus with the mulberry- 
coloured great-coat, for I felt that in the very difference between them, in 
the self-denial of her pure soul and the sordid baseness of his, the greatest 
danger lay. All this, doubtless, he knew thoroughly, and had, in his 
cunning, considered well. 

Yet, I was so certain that the prospect of such a sacrifice afar off, must 
destroy the happiness of Agnes ; and I was so sure, from her manner, of 
its being unseen by her then, and having cast no shadow on her yet ; that 
I could as soon have injured her, as given her any warning of what 
impended. Thus it was that we parted without explanation : she waving 
her hand and smiling farewell from the coach- window ; her evil genius 
writhing on the roof, as if he had her in his clutches and triumphed. 

I could not get over this farewell glimpse of them for a long time. 
When Agnes wrote to tell me of her safe arrival, I was as miserable as when 
I saw her going away. Whenever I fell into a thoughtful state, this 
subject was sure to present itself, and all my uneasiness was sure to be 
redoubled. Hardly a night passed without my dreaming of it. It became 
a part of my life, and as inseparable from my life as my own head. 

I had ample leisure to refine upon my uneasiness : for Steerforth was 
at Oxford, as he wrote to me, and when I was not at the Commons, I was 
very much alone. I believe I had at this time some lurking distrust of 



272 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Steerforth. I wrote to him most affectionately in reply to his, but I think I 
was glad, upon the whole, that he could not come to London just then. I 
suspect the truth to be, that the influence of Agnes was upon me, undis- 
turbed by the sight of him ; and that it was the more powerful with me, 
because she had so large a share in my thoughts and interest. 

In the meantime, days and weeks slipped away. I was articled to 
Spenlow and Jorkins. I had ninety pounds a year (exclusive of my house- 
rent and sundry collateral matters) from my aunt. My rooms were 
engaged for twelve months certain : and though I still found them dreary 
of an evening, and the evenings long, I could settle down into a state of 
equable low spirits, and resign myself to coffee ; which I seem, on looking 
back, to have taken by the gallon at about this period of my existence. 
At about this time, too, I made three discoveries : first, that Mrs. Crupp 
was a martyr to a curious disorder called " the spazzums," which was 
generally accompanied with inflammation of the nose, and required to be 
constantly treated with peppermint ; secondly, that something peculiar in 
the temperature of my pantry, made the brandy-bottles burst ; thirdly, that 
I was alone in the world, and much given to record that circumstance in 
fragments of English versification. 

On the day when I was articled, no festivity took place, beyond my 
having sandwiches and sherry into the office for the clerks, and going alone 
to the theatre at night. I went to see " The Stranger " as a Doctors' 
Commons sort of play, and was so dreadfully cut up, that I hardly knew 
myself in my own glass when I got home. Mr. Spenlow remarked, on 
this occasion, when we concluded our business, that he should have been 
happy to have seen me at his house at Norwood to celebrate our becoming 
connected, but for his domestic arrangements being in some disorder, on 
account of the expected return of his daughter from finishing her educa- 
tion at Paris. But, he intimated that when she came home he should 
hope to have the pleasure of entertaining me. I knew that he was a 
widower with one daughter, and expressed my acknowledgments. 

Mr. Spenlow was as good as his word. In a week or two, he referred 
to this engagement, and said, that if I would do him the favor to come 
down next Saturday, and stay till Monday, he would be extremely happy. 
Of course I said I would do him the favor ; and he was to drive me down 
in his phaeton, and to bring me back. 

When the day arrived, my very carpet-bag was an object of veneration to 
the stipendiary clerks, to whom the house at Norwood was a sacred mystery. 
One of them informed me that he had heard that Mr. Spenlow ate entirely 
off plate and china ; and another hinted at champagne being constantly on 
draught, after the usual custom of table beer. The old clerk with the 
wig, whose name was Mr. Tiffey, had been down on business several 
times in the course of his career, and had on each occasion penetrated to 
the breakfast-parlor. He described it as an apartment of the most 
sumptuous nature, and said that he had drunk brown East India sherry 
there, of a quality so precious as to make a man wink. 

We had an adjourned cause in the Consistory that day — about excom- 
municating a baker who had been objecting in a vestry to a paving-rate — 
and as the evidence was just twice the length of Eobinson Crusoe, accord- 
ing to a calculation I made, it was rather late in the day before we 
finished. However, we got him excommunicated for six weeks, and 



OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 273 

sentenced in no end of costs ; and then the baker's proctor, and the judge, 
and the advocates on both sides (who were all nearly related), went out of 
town together, and Mr. Spenlow and I drove away in the phaeton. 

The phaeton was a very handsome affair ; the horses arched their 
necks and lifted up their legs as if they knew they belonged to Doctors' 
Commons. There was a good deal of competition in the Commons on all 
points of display, and it turned out some very choice equipages then; though 
I always have considered, and always shall consider, that in my time the great 
article of competition there was starch : which I think was worn among 
the proctors to as great an extent as it is in the nature of man to bear. 

We were very pleasant, going down, and Mr. Spenlow gave me some 
hints in reference to my profession. He said it was the genteelest 
profession in the world, and must on no account be confounded with the 
profession of a solicitor : being quite ' another sort of thing, infinitely 
more exclusive, less mechanical, and more profitable. We took things 
much more easily in the Commons than they could be taken anywhere 
else, he observed, and that set us, as a privileged class, apart. He 
said it was impossible to conceal the disagreeable fact, that we were 
chiefly employed by solicitors ; but he gave me to understand that they 
were an inferior race of men, universally looked down upon by all proctors 
of any pretensions. 

I asked Mr. Spenlow what he considered the best sort of professional 
business ? He replied, that a good case of a disputed will, where there 
was a neat little estate of thirty or forty thousand pounds, was, perhaps, 
the best of all. In such a case, he said, not only were there very pretty 
pickings in the way of arguments at every stage of the proceedings, and 
mountains upon mountains of evidence on interrogatory and counter- 
interrogatory (to say nothing of an appeal lying, first to the Delegates, 
and then to the Lords) ; but, the costs being pretty sure to come out of 
the estate at last, both sides went at it in a lively and spirited manner, 
and expense was no consideration. Then, he launched into a general 
eulogium on the Commons. What was to be particularly admired (he 
said) in the Commons, was its compactness. It was the most conve- 
niently organised place in the world. It was the complete idea of snug- 
ness. It lay in a nut-shell. For example : You brought a divorce case, 
or a restitution case, into the Consistory. Very good. You tried it in 
the Consistory. You made a quiet little round game of it, among a 
family group, and you played it out at leisure. Suppose you were not 
satisfied with the Consistory, what did you do then ? Why, you went 
into the Arches. What was the Arches ? The same court, in the same 
room, with the same bar, and the same practitioners, but another judge, 
for there the Consistory judge could plead any court-day as an advocate. 
Well, you played your round game out again. Still you were not 
satisfied. "Very good. What did you do then ? Why, you went to the 
Delegates. Who were the Delegates ? Why, the Ecclesiastical Delegates 
were the advocates without any business, who had looked on at the 
round game when it was playing in both courts, and had seen the cards 
shuffled, and cut, and played, and had talked to all the players about it, 
and now came fresh, as judges, to settle the matter to the satisfaction of 
everybody ! Discontented people might talk of corruption in the Com- 
mons, closeness in the Commons, and the necessity of reforming the 

T 



274 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Commons, said Mr. Spenlow solemnly, in conclusion ; but when the price of 
wheat per bushel had been highest, the Commons had been busiest ; and a 
man might lay his hand upon his heart, and say this to the whole world, — 
" Touch the Commons, and down comes the country !" 

I listened to all this with attention ; and though, I must say, I had 
my doubts whether the country was quite as much obliged to the Com- 
mons as Mr. Spenlow made out, I respectfully deferred to his opinion. 
That about the price of wheat per bushel, I modestly felt was too much 
for my strength, and quite settled the question. I have never, to this 
hour, got the better of that bushel of wheat. It has re-appeared to 
annihilate me, all through my life, in connexion with all kinds of subjects. 
I don't know now, exactly, what it has to do with me, or what right 
it has to crush me, on an infinite variety of occasions ; but whenever I 
see my old friend the bushel brought in by the head and shoulders (as he 
always is, I observe), I give up a subject for lost. 

This is a digression. I was not the man to touch the Commons, and 
bring down the country. I submissively expressed, by my silence, my 
acquiescence in all I had heard from my superior in years and knowledge ; 
and we talked about " The Stranger" and the Drama, and the pair of 
horses, until we came to Mr. Spenlow's gate. 

There was a lovely garden to Mr. Spenlow's house ; and though that was 
not the best time of the year for seeing a garden, it was so beautifully kept, 
that I was quite enchanted. There was a charming lawn, there were 
clusters of trees, and there were perspective walks that I could just 
distinguish in the dark, arched over with trellis-work, on which shrubs 
and flowers grew in the growing season. " Here Miss Spenlow walks by 
herself," I thought. " Dear me !" 

We went into the house, which was cheerfully lighted up, and into a 
hall where there were all sorts of hats, caps, great-coats, plaids, gloves, 
whips, and walking-sticks. "Where is Miss Dora?" said Mr. Spenlow to 
the servant. " Dora ! " I thought. " What a beautiful name ! " 

We turned into a room near at hand (I think it was the identical 
breakfast-room, made memorable by the brown East Indian Sherry), and 
I heard a voice say, " Mr. Copperfield, my daughter Dora, and my 
daughter Dora's confidential friend ! " It was, no doubt, Mr. Spenlow's 
voice, but I didn't know it, and I didn't care whose it was. All was 
over in a moment. I had fulfilled my destiny. I was a captive and a 
slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction ! 

She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don't 
know what she was — any thing that no one ever saw, and every thing that 
every body ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an 
instant. There was no pausing on the brink ; no looking down, or looking 
back ; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a word to her. 

" J," observed a well-remembered voice, when I had bowed and mur- 
mured something, " have seen Mr. Copperfield before." 

The speaker was not Dora. No; the confidential friend. Miss 
Murdstone ! 

I don't think I was much astonished. To the best of my judgment, no 
capacity of astonishment was left in me. There was nothing worth 
mentioning in the material world, but Dora Spenlow, to be astonished 
about. I said, " How do you do, Miss Murdstone ? I hope you are 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 275 

well." She answered, " Very well." I said, " How is Mr. Murdstone ? " 
She replied, " My brother is robust, I am obliged to you." 

Mr. Spenlow, who, I suppose, had been surprised to see us recognise 
each other, then put in his word. 

" I am glad to find," he said, " Copperfield, that you and Miss Murd- 
stone are already acquainted." 

" Mr. Copperfield and myself," said Miss Murdstone, with severe 
composure, " are connexions. We were once slightly acquainted. It was 
in his childish days. Circumstances have separated us since. I should 
not have known him." 

I replied that I should have known her, any where. Which was true 
enough. 

" Miss Murdstone has had the goodness," said Mr. Spenlow to me, " to 
accept the office — if I may so describe it — of my daughter Dora's con- 
fidential friend. My daughter Dora having, unhappily, no mother, Miss 
Murdstone is obliging enough to become her companion and protector." 

A passing thought occurred to me that Miss Murdstone, like the pocket 
instrument called a life-preserver, was not so much designed for purposes 
of protection as of assault. But as I had none but passing thoughts for 
any subject save Dora, I glanced at her, directly afterwards, and was 
thinking that I saw, in her prettily pettish manner, that she was not 
very much inclined to be particularly confidential to her companion and 
protector, when a bell rang, which Mr, Spenlow said was the first dinner- 
bell, and so carried me off to dress. 

The idea of dressing one's self, or doing any thing in the way of action, 
in that state of love, was a little too ridiculous. I could only sit down 
before my fire, biting the key of my carpet-bag, and think of the capti- 
vating, girlish, bright-eyed lovely Dora, What a form she had, what a 
face she had, what a graceful, variable, enchanting manner ! 

The bell rang again so soon that I made a mere scramble of my dress- 
ing, instead of the careful operation I could have wished under the 
circumstances, and went down-stairs. There was some company. Dora 
was talking to an old gentleman with a grey head. Grey as he was — and 
a great-grandfather into the bargain, for he said so — I was madly jealous 
of him. 

What a state of mind I was in ! I was jealous of everybody. I couldn't 
bear the idea of anybody knowing Mr. Spenlow better than I did. It was 
torturing to me to hear them talk of occurrences in which I had had 
no share. When a most amiable person, with a highly polished bald 
head, asked me across the dinner-table, if that were the first occasion of 
my seeing the grounds, I could have done anything to him that was 
savage and revengeful. 

I don't remember who was there, except Dora. I have not the least idea 
what we had for dinner, besides Dora. My impression is, that I dined off 
Dora, entirely, and sent away half-a-dozen plates untouched. I sat next 
to her. I talked to her. She had the most delightful little voice, the 
gayest little laugh, the pleasantest and most fascinating little ways, that 
ever led a lost youth into hopeless slavery. She was rather diminutive 
altogether. So much the more precious, I thought. 

When she went out of the room with Miss Murdstone (no other ladies 
were of the party), I fell into a reverie, only disturbed by the cruel appre- 

T a 



276 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

tension that Miss Murdstone would disparage me to her. The amiable 
creature with the polished head told me a long story, which I think was 
about gardening. I think I heard him say, "my gardener," several times. 
I seemed to pay the deepest attention to him, but I was wandering in a 
garden of Eden all the while, with Dora. 

My apprehensions of being disparaged to the object of my engrossing 
affection were revived when we went into the drawing-room, by the grim 
and distant aspect of Miss Murdstone. But I was relieved of them in an 
unexpected manner. 

" David Copperfield," said Miss Murdstone, beckoning me aside into 
a window. " A word." 

I confronted Miss Murdstone alone. 

" David Copperfield," said Miss Murdstone, " I need not enlarge upon 
family circumstances. They are not a tempting subject." 

" Far from it, ma'am," I returned. 

" Far from it," assented Miss Murdstone. " I do not wish to revive the 
memory of past differences, or of past outrages. I have received outrages 
from a person — a female I am sorry to say, for the credit of my sex — 
who is not to be mentioned without scorn and disgust ; and therefore I 
would rather not mention her." 

I felt very fiery on my aunt's account ; but I said it would certainly be 
better, if Miss Murdstone pleased, not to mention her. I could not hear 
her disrespectfully mentioned, I added, without expressing my opinion in a 
decided tone. 

Miss Murdstone shut her eyes, and disdainfully inclined her head ; then, 
slowly opening her eyes, resumed : 

" David Copperfield, I shall not attempt to disguise the fact, that I 
formed an unfavorable opinion of you in your childhood. It may have 
been a mistaken one, or you may have ceased to justify it. That is not 
in question between us now. I belong to a family remarkable, I believe, 
for some firmness ; and I am not the creature of circumstance or change. 
I may have my opinion of you. You may have your opinion of me." 

I inclined my head, in my turn. 

"But it is not necessary," said Miss Murdstone, "that these opinions 
should come into collision here. Under existing circumstances, it is as 
well on all accounts that they should not. As the chances of life have 
brought us together again, and may bring us together on other occasions, 
I would say let us meet here as distant acquaintances. Family circum- 
stances are a sufficient reason for our only meeting on that footing, and it 
is quite unnecessary that either of us should make the other the subject of 
remark. Do you approve of this ? " 

" Miss Murdstone," I returned, " I think you and Mr. Murdstone used 
me very cruelly, and treated my mother with great unkindness. I shall 
always think so, as long as I live. But I quite agree in what you propose." 

Miss Murdstone shut her eyes again, and bent her head. Then, just 
touching the back of my hand with the tips of her cold, stiff fingers, she 
walked away, arranging the little fetters on her wrists and round her 
neck: which seemed to be the same set, in exactly the same state, as 
when I had seen her last. These reminded me, in reference to 
Miss Murdstone's nature, of the fetters over a jail-door ; suggesting on 
the outside, to all beholders, what was to be expected within. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 277 

All I know of the rest of the evening is, that I heard the empress of 
my heart sing- enchanted ballads in the French language, generally to the 
effect that, whatever was the matter, we ought always to dance, Ta ra la, 
Ta ra la ! accompanying herself on a glorified instrument, resembling a 
guitar. That I was lost in blissful delirium. That I refused refresh- 
ment. That my soul recoiled from punch particularly. That when 
Miss Murdstone took her into custody and led her away, she smiled and 
gave me her delicious hand. That I caught a view of myself in a mirror, 
looking perfectly imbecile and idiotic. That I retired to bed in a most 
maudlin state of mind, and got up in a crisis of feeble infatuation. 

It was a fine morning, and early, and I thought I would go and take a 
stroll down one of those wire-arched walks, and indulge my passion by 
dwelling on her image. On my way through the hall, I encountered her 
little dog, who was called Jip — short for Gipsy. I approached him 
tenderly, for I loved even him ; but he showed his whole set of teeth, 
got under a chair expressly to snarl, and wouldn't hear of the least 
familiarity. 

The garden was cool and solitary. I walked about, wondering what 
my feelings of happiness would be, if I could ever become engaged to this 
dear wonder. As to marriage, and fortune, and all that, I believe I was 
almost as innocently undesigning then, as when I loved little Em'ly. To 
be allowed to call her " Dora," to write to her, to dote upon and worship 
her, to have reason to think that when she was with other people she was 
yet mindful of me, seemed to me the summit of human ambition — I am 
sure it was the summit of mine. There is no doubt whatever that I was 
a lackadaisical young spooney ; but there was a purity of heart in all this 
still, that prevents my having quite a contemptuous recollection of it, let 
me laugh as I may. 

I had not been walking long, when I turned a corner, and met her. I 
tingle again from head to foot as my recollection turns that corner, and 
my pen shakes in my hand. 

" You — are — out early, Miss Spenlow," said I. 

" It 's so stupid at home," she replied, " and Miss Murdstone is so 
absurd ! She talks such nonsense about its being necessary for the day 
to be aired, before I come out. Aired ! " (She laughed, here, in the 
most melodious manner). " On a Sunday morning, when I don't practise, 
I must do something. So I told papa last night I must come out. 
Besides, it 's the brightest time of the whole day. Don't you think so ? " 

I hazarded a bold flight, and said (not without stammering) that it was 
very bright to me then, though it had been very dark to me a minute before. 

" Do you mean a compliment?" said Dora, " or that the weather has 
really changed?" 

I stammered worse than before, in replying that I meant no com- 
pliment, but the plain truth; though I was not aware of any change 
having taken place in the weather. It was in the state of my own feelings, 
I added bashfully : to clench the explanation. 

I never saw such curls — how could I, for there never were such curls!— 
as those she shook out to hide her blushes. As to the straw hat and blue 
ribbons which was on the top of the curls, if I could only have hung it 
up in my room in Buckingham Street, what a priceless possession it 
would have been ! 



278 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" You have just come home from Paris," said I. 

" Yes," said she. " Have you ever been there ?" 

" No." 

" Oh ! I hope you'll go soon. You would like it so much !" 

Traces of deep-seated anguish appeared in my countenance. That she 
should hope I would go, that she should think it possible I could go, was 
insupportable. I depreciated Paris; I depreciated Prance. I said I 
wouldn't leave England, under existing circumstances, for any earthly 
consideration. Nothing should induce me. In short, she was shaking 
the curls again, when the little dog came running along the walk to our 
relief. 

He was mortally jealous of me, and persisted in barking at me. She 
took him up in her arms — oh my goodness ! — and caressed him, but he 
insisted upon barking still. He wouldn't let me touch him, when I tried ; 
and then she beat him. It increased my sufferings greatly to see the pats 
she gave him for punishment on the bridge of his blunt nose, while he winked 
his eyes, and licked her hand, and still growled within himself like a little 
double-bass. At length he was quiet — well he might be with her dimpled 
chin upon his head ! — and we walked away to look at a greenhouse. 

" You are not very intimate with Miss Murdstone, are you ?" said 
Dora.— " My pet ! " 

(The two last words were to the dog. Oh if they had only been to 
me !) 

" No," I replied. " Not at all so." 

" She is a tiresome creature," said Dora pouting. " I can't think 
what papa can have been about, when he chose such a vexatious thing to 
be my companion. Who wants a protector ! I am sure / don't want a 
protector. Jip can protect me a great deal better than Miss Murdstone, — 
can't you, Jip dear ? " 

He only winked lazily, when she kissed his ball of a head. 

" Papa calls her my confidential friend, but I am sure she is no such 
thing — is she, Jip ? |We are not going to confide in any such cross people, 
Jip and I. We mean to bestow our confidence where we like, and to 
find out our own friends, instead of having them found out for us — don't 
we, Jip ? " 

Jip made a comfortable noise, in answer, a little like a tea-kettle when 
it sings. As for me, every word was a new heap of fetters, rivetted 
above the last. 

" It is very hard, because we have not a kind Mama, that we are to 
have, instead, a sulky, gloomy old thing like Miss Murdstone, always 
following us about — isn't it, Jip? Never mind, Jip. We won't be 
confidential, and we'll make ourselves as happy as we can in spite of her, 
and we'll teaze her, and not please her, — won't we, Jip ? " 

If it had lasted any longer, I think I must have gone clown on my knees 
on the gravel, with the probability before me of grazing them, and of 
being presently ejected from the premises besides. But, by good fortune 
the greenhouse was not far off, and these words brought us to it. 

It contained quite a show of beautiful geraniums. We loitered along 
in front of them, and Dora often stopped to admire this one or that one, 
and I stopped to admire the same one, and Dora, laughing, held the dog up 
childishlv, to smell the flowers ; and if we were not all three in Fairyland, 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 279 

certainly I was. The scent of a geranium leaf, at this day, strikes me 
with a half comical half serious wonder as to what change has come over 
me in a moment ; and then I see a straw hat and blue ribbons, and a 
quantity of curls, and a little black dog being held up, in two slender 
arms, against a bank of blossoms and bright leaves. 

Miss Murdstone had been looking for 113. She found us here ; and 
presented her uncongenial cheek, the little wrinkles in it filled with hair- 
powder, to Dora to be kissed. Then she took Dora's arm in hers, and 
marched us in to breakfast as if it were a soldier's funeral. 

How many cups of tea I drank, because Dora made it, I don't know. 
But, I perfectly remember that I sat swilling tea until my whole nervous 
system, if I had had any in those days, must have gone by the board. 
By-and-by we went to church. Miss Murdstone was between Dora 
and me in the pew ; but I heard her sing, and the congregation vanished. 
A sermon was delivered — about Dora, of course — and I am afraid that is 
all I know of the service. 

We had a quiet day. No company, a walk, a family dinner of four, and 
an evening of looking over books and pictures ; Miss Murdstone with 
a homily before her, and her eye upon us, keeping guard vigilantly. 
Ah ! little did Mr. Spenlow imagine, when he sat opposite to me after 
dinner that clay, with his pocket-handkerchief over his head, how fervently 
I was embracing him, in my fancy, as his son-in-law! Little did he think, 
when I took leave of him at night, that he had just given his full consent to 
my being engaged to Dora, and that I was invoking blessings on his head ! 

We departed early in the morning, for we had a Salvage case coming on 
in the Admiralty Court/requiring a rather accurate knowledge of the whole 
science of navigation, in which (as we couldn't be expected to know much 
about those matters in the Commons) the judge had entreated two old 
Trinity Masters, for charity's sake, to come and help him out. Dora was 
at the breakfast-table to make the tea again, however ; and I had the 
melancholy pleasure of taking off my hat to her in the phaeton, as she 
stood on the door-step with Jip in her arms. 

What the Admiralty was to me that day ; what nonsense I made of our 
case in my mind, as I listened to it ; how I saw " Dora " engraved upon the 
blade of the silver oar which they lay upon the table, as the emblem of 
that high jurisdiction ; and how I felt, when Mr. Spenlow went home 
without me (I had had an insane hope that he might take me back again), 
as if I were a mariner myself, and the ship to which I belonged had sailed 
away and left me on a desert island ; I shall make no fruitless effort to 
describe. If that sleepy old court could rouse itself, and present in any 
visible form the day dreams I have had in it about Dora, it would reveal 
my truth. 

I don't mean the dreams that I dreamed on that day alone, but day 
after day, from week to week, and term to term. I went there, not to 
attend to what was going on, but to think about Dora. If I ever bestowed 
a thought upon the cases, as they dragged their slow length before me, 
it was only to wonder, in the matrimonial cases (remembering Dora), how 
it was that married people could ever be otherwise than happy ; and, 
in the Prerogative cases, to consider, if the money in question had beeu 
left to me, what were the foremost steps I should immediately have 
taken in regard to Dora. Within the first week of my passion, I 



280 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

bought four sumptuous waistcoats — not for myself; i" had no pride 
in them; for Dora — and took to wearing straw-colored kid gloves in 
the streets, and laid the foundations of all the corns I have ever had. 
If the boots I wore at that period could only be produced and com- 
pared with the natural size of my feet, they would show what the state 
of my heart was, in a most affecting manner. 

And yet, wretched cripple as I made myself by this act of homage to 
Dora, I walked miles upon miles daily in the hope of seeing her. Not 
only was I soon as well known on the Norwood Eoad as the postmen on 
that beat, but I pervaded London likewise. I walked about the streets 
where the best shops for ladies were, I haunted the Bazaar like an unquiet 
spirit, I fagged through the Park again and again, long after I was 
quite knocked up. Sometimes, at long intervals and on rare occa- 
sions, I saw her. Perhaps I saw her glove waved in a carriage window ; 
perhaps I met her, walked with her and Miss Murdstone a little way, 
and spoke to her. In the latter case I was always very miserable after- 
wards, to think that I had said nothing to the purpose ; or that she had no 
idea of the extent of my devotion, or that she cared nothing about 
me. I was always looking out, as may be supposed, for another in- 
vitation to Mr. Spenlow's house. " I was always being disappointed, 
for I got none. 

Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration; for when this 
attachment was but a few weeks old, and I had not had the courage to 
write more explicitly even to Agnes, than that I had been to Mr. Spenlow's 
house, " whose family," I added, " consists of one daughter ;" — I say 
Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration, for, even in that 
early stage, she found it out. She came up to me one evening, when I 
was very low, to ask (she being then afflicted with the disorder I have 
mentioned) if I could oblige her with a little tincture of cardamums mixed 
with rhubarb, and flavored with seven drops of the essence of cloves, 
which was the best remedy for her complaint ; — or, if I had not such a 
thing by me, with a little brandy, which was the next best. It was not, 
she remarked, so palatable to her, but it was the next best. As I had 
never even heard of the first remedy, and always had the second in the 
closet, I gave Mrs. Crupp a glass of the second, which (that I might 
have no suspicion of its being devoted to any improper use) she began to 
take in my presence. 

" Cheer up, sir," said Mrs. Crupp, " I can't abear to see you so, sir, 
I 'm a mother myself." 

I did not quite perceive the application of this fact to myself, but I 
smiled on Mrs. Crupp, as benignly as was in my power. 

" Come, sir," said Mrs. Crupp. " Excuse me. I know what it is, 
sir. There 's a young lady in the case." 

" Mrs. Crupp ? " I returned, reddening. ff 

" Oh, bless you ! Keep a good heart, sir ! " said Mrs. Crupp, nodding 
encouragement. " Never say die, sir ! If She don't smile upon you, 
there 's a many as will. You 're a young gentleman to be smiled on, 
Mr. Copperfull, and you must learn your walue, sir." 

Mrs. Crupp always called me Mr. Copperfull : firstly, no doubt, 
because it was not my name ; and secondly, I am inclined to think, in 
some indistinct association with a washing-day. 



OF DAVID COPPEItFIELD. 281 

"What makes you suppose there is any young lady in the case, 
Mrs. Crupp?" said I. 

" Mr. Copperfull," said Mrs. Crupp, with a great deal of feeling, 
" I 'm a mother myself." 

For some time Mrs. Crupp could only lay her hand upon her nankeen 
bosom, and fortify herself against returning pain with sips of her medicine. 
At length she spoke again. 

" When the present set were took for you by your dear aunt, Mr. 
Copperfull," said Mrs. Crupp, "my remark were, I had now found 
summun I could care for. ' Thank Ev'in ! ' were the expression, ' I have 
now found summun I can care for ! ' — You don't eat enough, sir, nor 
yet drink." 

" Is that what you found your supposition on, Mrs. Crupp ? " said I. 

" Sir," said Mrs. Crupp, in a tone approaching to severity, " I 've laun- 
dressed other young gentlemen besides yourself. A young gentleman 
may be over-careful of himself, or he may be under-careful of himself. He 
may brush his hair too regular, or too unregular. He may wear his boots 
much too large for him, or much too small. That is according as the 
young gentleman has his original character formed. But let him go to 
which extreme he may, sir, there 's a young lady in both, of 'em." 

Mrs. Crupp shook her head in such a determined manner, that I had 
not an inch of 'vantage ground left. 

" It was but the gentleman which died here before yourself," said 
Mrs. Crupp, " that fell in love — with a barmaid — and had his waistcoats 
took in directly, though much swelled by drinking." 

"Mrs. Crupp," said I, "I must beg you not to connect the young lady 
in my case with a barmaid, or anything .of that sort, if you please." 

" Mr. Copperfull," returned Mrs. Crupp, " I 'm a mother myself, and 
not likely. I ask your pardon, sir, if I intrude. I should never wish to 
intrude where I were not welcome. But you are a young gentleman, 
Mr. Copperfull, and my adwice to you is, to cheer up, sir, to keep a good 
heart, and to know your own walue. If you was to take to something, 
sir," said Mrs. Crupp, " if you was to take to skittles, now, which is 
healthy, you might find it divert your mind, and do you good." 

With these words, Mrs. Crupp, affecting to be very careful of the 
brandy — which it was all gone — thanked me with a majestic curtsey, 
and retired. As her figure disappeared into the gloom of the entry, 
this counsel certainly presented itself to my mind in the light of a slight 
liberty on Mrs. Crupp's part; but, at the same time, I was content to 
receive it, in another point of view, as a word to the wise, and a warning 
in future to keep my secret better. 



282 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

TOMMY TRADDLES. 

It may have been in consequence of Mrs. Crupp's advice, and, perhaps, 
for no better reason than because there was a certain similarity in the 
sound of the words skittles and Traddles, that it came into my head, 
next day, to go and look after Traddles. The time he had mentioned was 
more than out, and he Kved in a little street near the Veterinary College 
at Camden Town, which was principally tenanted, as one of our clerks 
who lived in that direction informed me, by gentlemen students, who 
bought live donkeys, and made experiments on those quadrupeds in their 
private apartments. Having obtained from this clerk a direction to the 
academic grove in question, I set out, the same afternoon, to visit my old 
schoolfellow. 

I found that the street was not as desirable a one as I could have wished 
it to be, for the sake of Traddles. The inhabitants appeared to have a 
propensity to throw any little trifles they were not in want of, into the 
road : which not only made it rank and sloppy, but untidy too, on account 
of the cabbage-leaves. The refuse was not wholly vegetable either, for 
I myself saw a shoe, a doubled-up saucepan, a black bonnet, and an 
umbrella, in various stages of decomposition, as I was looking out for the 
number I wanted. 

The general air of the place reminded me forcibly of the days when 
I lived with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. An indescribable character of faded 
gentility that attached to the house I sought, and made it unlike all the 
other houses in the street — though they were all built on one monotonous 
pattern, and looked like the early copies of a blundering boy who was 
learning to make houses, and had not yet got out of his cramped brick 
and mortar pothooks — reminded me still more of Mr- and Mrs. Micawber. 
Happening to arrive at the door as it was opened to the afternoon 
milkman, I was reminded of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber more forcibly yet. 

■ Now," said the milkman to a very youthful, servant girl. " Has 
that there little bill of mine been heerd on? " 

" Oh master says he '11 attend to it immediate," was the reply. 

" Because," said the milkman, going on as if he had received no 
answer, and speaking, as I judged from his tone, rather for the edification 
of somebody within the house, than of the youthful servant — an impres- 
sion which was' strengthened by his manner of glaring down the passage — 
" Because that there little bill has been running so long, that I begin to 
believe it 's run away altogether, and never won't be heerd of. Now, 
I 'm not a going to stand it, you know ! " said the milkman, still 
throwing his voice into the house, and glaring down the passage. 

As to his dealing in the mild article of milk, by-the-by, there never 
was a greater anomaly. His deportment would have been fierce in a 
butcher or a brandy merchant. 

The voice of the youthful servant became faint, but she seemed to me, 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 283 

from the action of her lips, again to murmur that it would be attended 
to immediate. 

" I tell you what," said the milkman, looking hard at her for the first 
time, and taking her by the chin, " are you fond of milk ? " 

" Yes, I likes it," she replied. 

" Good," said the milkman. " Then you won't have none to-morrow. 
D 'ye hear? Not a fragment of milk you won't have to-morrow." 

I thought she seemed, upon the whole, relieved, by the prospect of 
having any to-day. The milkman, after shaking his head at her, darkly, 
released her chin, and with any thing rather than good will opened his 
can, and deposited the usual quantity in the family jug. This done, he 
went away, muttering, and uttered the cry of his trade next door, in a 
vindictive shriek. 

" Does Mr. Traddles live here?" I then enquired. 

A mysterious voice from the end of the passage replied " Yes." Upon 
which the youthful servant replied " Yes." 

" Is he at home ?" said I. 

Again the mysterious voice replied in the affirmative, and again the 
servant echoed it. Upon this, I walked in, and in pursuance of the 
servant's directions walked up-stairs; conscious, as I passed the back 
parlor-door, that I was surveyed by a mysterious eye, probably belonging 
to the mysterious voice. 

When I got to the top of the stairs — the house was only a story high 
above the ground floor — Traddles was on the landing to meet me. He 
was delighted to see me, and gave me welcome, with great heartiness, to 
his little room. It was in the front of the house, and extremely neat, 
though sparely furnished. It was his only room, I saw ; for there was a 
sofa-bedstead in it, and his blacking-brushes and blackiag were among 
his books — on the top shelf, behind a dictionary, His table was covered 
with papers, and he was hard at work in an old coat. I looked at nothing, 
that I know of, but I saw everything, even to the prospect of a church 
upon his china inkstand, as I sat down — and this, too, was a faculty con- 
firmed in me in the old Micawber times. Various ingenious arrangements he 
had made, for the disguise of his chest of drawers, and the accommodation 
of his boots, his shaving-glass, and so forth, particularly impressed themselves 
upon me, as evidences of the same Traddles who used to make models of 
elephant's dens in writing paper to put flies in ; and to comfort himself, 
under ill usage, with the memorable works of art I have so often mentioned. 

In a corner of the room was something neatly covered up with a large 
white cloth. I could not make out what that was. 

" Traddles," said I, shaking hands with him again, after I had sat 
down. " I am delighted to see you." 

" I am delighted to see you, Copperfield," he returned. " I am very 
glad indeed to see you. It was because I was thoroughly glad to see you 
when we met in Ely Place, and was sure you were thoroughly glad to see 
me, that I gave you this address instead of my address at chambers." 

" Oh ! You have chambers ?" said I. 

" Why, I have the fourth of a room and a passage, and the fourth of a 
clerk," returned Traddles. " Three others and myself unite to have a set 
of chambers — to look business-like — and we quarter the clerk too. 
Half-a-crown a week he costs me." 



284 THE PERSONAL HISTOEY AND EXPERIENCE 

His old simple character and good temper, and something of his old 
unlucky fortune also, I thought, smiled at me in the smile with which he 
made this explanation. 

" It 's not because I have the least pride, Copperfield, you understand," 
said Traddles, " that I don't usually give my address here. It's only on 
account of those who come to me, who might not like to come here. 
For myself, I am fighting my way on in the world against difficulties, 
and it would be ridiculous if I made a pretence of doing any thing else." 

" You are reading for the bar, Mr. Waterbrook informed me ? " said I. 

" Why, yes," said Traddles, rubbing his hands, slowly over one another, 
" I am reading for the bar. The fact is, I have just begun to keep my 
terms, after rather a long delay. It 's some time since I was articled, but 
the payment of that hundred pounds was a great pull. A great pidl ! " 
said Traddles, with a wince, as if he had had a tooth out. 

"Do you know what I can't help thinking of, Traddles, as I sit here 
looking at you? " I asked him. 

" No," said he. 

" That sky-blue suit you used to wear." 

"Lord, to be sure!" cried Traddles, laughing. "Tight in the arms 
and le^s, you know ? Dear me ! Well ! Those were happv times, weren't 
they?" 

"I think our schoolmaster might have made them happier, without 
doing any harm to any of us, I acknowledge," I returned. 

" Perhaps he might," said Traddles. " But dear me, there was a good 
deal of fun going on. Do you remember the nights in the bed-room ? 
When we used to have the suppers? And when you used to tell the 
stories? Ha, ha, ha! And do you remember when I got caned for 
crying about Mr. Mell ? Old Creakle ! I should like to see him again, 
too ! " 

" He was a brute to you, Traddles," said I, indignantly ; for his good 
humour made me feel as if I had seen him beaten but yesterday. 

"Do you think so?" returned Traddles. "Keally? Perhaps he was, 
rather. But it 's all over, a long while. Old Creakle ! " 

" You were brought up by an uncle, then ? " said I. 

" Of course I was ! " said Traddles. " The one I was always going to 
write to. And always didn't, eh ! Ha, ha, ha ! Yes, I had an uncle then. 
He died soon after I left school." 

"Indeed!" 

" Yes. He was a retired — what do you call it ! — draper — cloth-mer- 
chant — and had made me his heir. But he didn't like me when I 
grew up." 

" Do you really mean that ? " said I. He was so composed, that I 
fancied he must have some other meaning. 

" dear yes, Copperfield ! I mean it," replied Traddles. "It was an 
unfortunate thing, but he didn't like me at all. He said I wasn't at all 
what he expected, and so he married his housekeeper." 

" And what did you do ? " I asked. 

" I didn't do anything in particular," said Traddles. " I lived with 
them, waiting to be put out in the world, until his gout unfortunately 
flew to his stomach — and so he died, and so she married a young man, 
and so I wasn't provided for." 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 285 

" Did you get nothing, Traddles, after all ? " 

"Oh dear yes!" said Traddles. "I got fifty pounds. I had never 
been brought up to any profession, and at first I was at a loss what to do 
for myself. However, I began, with the assistance of the son of a profes- 
sional man, who had been to Salem House — Yawler, with his nose on one 
side. Do you recollect him ? " 

No. He had not been there with me ; all the noses were straight, in 
my flay. 

" It don't matter," said Traddles. " I began, by means of his assist- 
ance, to copy law writings. That didn't answer very well; and then I 
began to state cases for them, and make abstracts, and do that sort of 
work. For I am a plodding kind of fellow, Copperfield, and had learnt 
the way of doing such things pithily. Well ! That put it in my head to 
enter myself as a law student ; and that ran away with all that was left of 
the fifty pounds. Yawler recommended me to one or two other offices, 
however — Mr. Waterbrook's for one — and I got a good many jobs. I 
was fortunate enough, too, to become acquainted with a person in the 
publishing way, who was getting up an Encyclopaedia, and he set me to 
work ; and, indeed" (glancing at his table), " I am at work for him at 
this minute. I am not a bad compiler, Copperfield," said Traddles, 
preserving the same air of cheerful confidence in all he said, " but I have 
no invention at all ; not a particle. I suppose there never was a young 
man with less originality than I have." 

As Traddles seemed to expect that I should assent to this as a matter 
of course, I nodded ; and he went on, with the same sprightly patience — 
I can find no better expression — as before. 

" So, by little and little, and not living high, T managed to scrape up 
the hundred pounds at last," said Traddles ; " and thank Heaven that 's 
paid — though it was — though it certainly was," said Traddles, wincing 
again as if he had had another tooth out, " a pull. I am living by the sort 
of work I have mentioned, still, and I hope, one of these days, to get con- 
nected with some newspaper : which would almost be the making of my 
fortune. Now, Copperfield, you are so exactly what you used to be, with 
that agreeable face, and it 's so pleasant to see you, that I sha'n't conceal 
anything. Therefore you must know that I am engaged." 

Engaged ! Oh Dora ! 

" She is a curate's daughter," said Traddles ; " one of ten, down in 
Devonshire. Yes ! " For he saw me glance, involuntarily, at the prospect 
on the. inkstand. " That 's the church ! You come round here, to the 
left, out of this gate," tracing his finger along the inkstand, " and exactly 
where I hold this pen, there stands the house— facing, you understand, 
towards the church." 

The delight with which he entered into these particulars, did not 
fully present itself to me until afterwards ; for my selfish thoughts were 
making a ground-plan of Mr. Spenlow's house and garden at the same 
moment. 

" She is such a dear girl ! " said Traddles ; " a little older than me, but 
the dearest girl ! I told you I was going out of town ? I have been down 
there. I walked there, and I walked back, and I had the most delightful 
time ! I dare say ours is likely to be a rather long engagement, but 
our motto is ' Wait and hope ! ' We always say that. ' Wait and hope,' 



286 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

we always say. And she would wait, Copperfield, till she was sixty — any 
age you can mention — for me ! " 

Traddles rose from his chair, and, with a triumphant smile, put his hand 
upon the white cloth I had observed. 

" However," he said, " it 's not that we haven't made a beginning 
towards housekeeping. No, no ; we have begun. We must get on by 
degrees, but we have begun. Here," drawing the cloth off with great 
pride and care, "are two pieces of furniture to commence with. This 
flower-pot and stand, she bought herself. Tou put that in a parlor- 
window," said Traddles, falling a little back from it to survey it with the 
greater admiration, " with a plant in it, and — and there you are ! This 
little round table with the marble top (it 's two feet ten in circumference), 
/ bought. You want to lay a book down, you know, or somebody comes 
to see you or your wife, and wants a place to stand a cup of tea upon, 
and — and there you are again ! " said Traddles. " It 's an admirable 
piece of workmanship — firm as a rock ! " 

I praised them both, highly, and Traddles replaced the covering as 
carefully as he had removed it. 

" It 's not a great deal towards the furnishing," said Traddles, " but 
it 's something. The table-cloths and pillow-cases, and articles of that 
kind, are what discourage me most, Copperfield. So does the iron- 
mongery — candle-boxes, and gridirons, and that sort of necessaries — 
because those things tell, and mount up. However, ' wait and hope ! ' 
And I assure you she 's the dearest girl ! " 

" I am quite certain of it," said I. 

" In the mean time," said Traddles, coming back to his chair ; " and 
this is the end of my prosing about myself, I get on as well as I can. I 
don't make much, but I don't spend much. In general, I board with the 
people down-stairs, who are very agreeable people indeed. Both Mr. and 
Mrs. Micawber have seen a good deal of life, and are excellent company." 

" My dear Traddles ! " I quickly exclaimed. " What are you talking 
about!'" 

Traddles looked at me, as if he wondered what /was talking about. 

" Mr. and Mrs. Micawber ! " I repeated. " Why, I am intimately 
acquainted with them ! " 

An opportune double knock at the door, which I knew well from old 
experience in Windsor Terrace, and which nobody but Mr. Micawber could 
ever have knocked at that door, resolved any doubt in my mind as to 
their being my old friends. I begged Traddles to ask his landlord 
to walk up. Traddles accordingly did so, over the bannister; and 
Mr. Micawber, not a bit changed — his tights, his stick, his shirt-collar, 
and his eye-glass, all the same as ever — came into the room with a genteel 
and youthful air . 

" I beg your pardon, Mr. Traddles," said Mr. Micawber, with the old 
roll in his voice, as he checked himself in humming a soft tune. " I was 
not aware that there was any individual, alien to this tenement, in your 
sanctum." 

Mr. Micawber slightly bowed to me, and pulled up his shirt-collar. 

" How do you do, Mr. Micawber ? " said I. 

" Sir," said Mr. Micawber, " you are exceedingly obliging. I am in 
statu qiioT 



OP DAVID COPPEKETELD. 287 

" And Mrs. Micawber? " I pursued. 

" Sir," said Mr. Micawber, " she is also, thank God, in statu quo." 

'* And the children, Mr. Micawber ? " 

" Sir," said Mr. Micawber, " I rejoice to reply that they are, likewise, 
in the enjoyment of salubrity." 

All this time, Mr. Micawber had not known me in the least, though he 
had stood face to face with me. But, now, seeing me smile, he examined 
my features with more attention, fell back, cried, " Is it possible ! Have 
I the pleasure of again beholding Copperfield ! " and shook me by both 
hands with the utmost fervor. 

" Good Heaven, Mr. Traddles ! " said Mr. Micawber, " to think that I 
should find you acquainted with the friend of my youth, the companion of 
earlier days ! My dear ! " calling over the bannisters to Mrs. Micawber, 
while Traddles looked (with reason) not a little amazed at this description 
of me. " Here is a gentleman in Mr. Traddles's apartment, whom he 
wishes to have the pleasure of presenting to you, my love ! " 

Mr. Micawber immediately reappeared, and shook hands with me 
again. 

" And how is our good friend the Doctor, Copperfield? " said Mr. Mi- 
cawber, " and all the circle at Canterbury? " 

" I have none but good accounts of them," said I. 

" I am most delighted to hear it," said Mr. Micawber. " It was at 
Canterbury where we last met. Within the shadow, I may figuratively 
say, of that religious edifice, immortalized by Chaucer, which was anciently 
the resort of Pilgrims from the remotest corners of — in short," said 
Mr. Micawber, "in the immediate neighbourhood of the Cathedral." 

I replied that it was. Mr. Micawber continued talking as volubly as 
he could ; but not, I thought, without showing, by some marks of concern 
in his countenance, that he was sensible of sounds in the next room, as 
of Mrs. Micawber washing her hands, and hurriedly opening and shutting- 
drawers that were uneasy in their action. 

" You find us, Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, with one eye on 
Traddles, " at present established, on what may be designated as a small and 
unassuming scale; but, you are aware that I have, in the course of my career, 
surmounted difficulties, and conquered obstacles. You are no stranger to 
the fact, that there have been periods of my life, when it has been requisite 
that I should pause, until certain expected events should turn up ; when it 
has been necessary that I should fall back, before making what I trust I 
shall not be accused of presumption in terming — a spring. The present 
is one of those momentous stages in the life of man. You find me, fallen 
back, for a spring ; and I have every reason to believe that a vigorous 
leap will shortly be the result." 

I was expressing my satisfaction, when Mrs. Micawber came in ; a 
little more slatternly than she used to be, or so she seemed now, to my 
unaccustomed eyes, but still with some preparation of herself for company, 
and with a pair of brown gloves on, 

" My dear," said Mr. Micawber, leading her towards me. " Here is 
a gentleman of the name of Copperfield, who wishes to renew his 
acquaintance with you." 

It would have been better, as it turned out, to have led gently up to 
his announcement, for Mrs. Micawber, being in a delicate state of health, 



288 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

was overcome by it, and was taken so unwell, that Mr. Micawber was 
obliged, in great trepidation, to run down to the water-butt in the 
back yard, and draw a basinful to lave her brow with. She presently 
revived, however, and was really pleased to see me. We had half-an- 
hour's talk, all together ; and I asked her about the twins, who, she said, 
were " grown great creatures ; " and after Master and Miss Micawber, 
whom she described as " absolute giants," but they were not produced 
on that occasion. 

Mr. Micawber was very anxious that I should stay to dinner. I 
should not have been averse to do so, but that I imagined I detected 
trouble, and calculation relative to the extent of the cold meat, in Mrs. 
Micawber's eye. I therefore pleaded another engagement ; and observing 
that Mrs. Micawber's spirits were immediately lightened, I resisted all 
persuasion to forego it. 

But I told Traddles, and Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, that before I could 
think of leaving, they must appoint a day when they would come and dine 
with me. The occupations to w r hich Traddles stood pledged, rendered it 
necessary to fix a somewhat distant one ; but an appointment was made for 
the purpose, that suited us all, and then I took my leave. 

Mr. Micawber, under pretence of showing me a nearer way than that by 
which I had come, accompanied me to the corner of the street ; being- 
anxious (he explained to me) to say a few w T ords to an old friend, in 
confidence. 

" My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, " I need hardly tell you 
that to have beneath our roof, under existing circumstances, a mind like 
that which gleams — if I may be allowed the expression — which gleams — 
in your friend Traddles, is an unspeakable comfort. With a washerwoman, 
who exposes hard-bake for sale in her parlor- window, dwelling next 
door, and a Bow-street officer residing over the way, you may imagine 
that his society is a source of consolation to myself and to Mrs. Micawber. 
I am at present, my dear Copperfield, engaged in the sale of corn upon 
commission. It is not an avocation of a remunerative description — in other 
words it does not pay — and some temporary embarrassments of a pecu- 
niary nature have been the consequence. I am, however, delighted to add 
that I have now an immediate prospect of something turning up (I am 
not at liberty to say in what direction), which I trust will enable me to 
provide, permanently, both for myself and for your friend Traddles, in 
whom I have an unaffected interest. You may, perhaps, be prepared to 
hear that Mrs. Micawber is in a state of health which renders it not 
wholly improbable that an addition may be ultimately made to those pledges 
of affection which — in short, to the infantine group. Mrs. Micawber's 
family have been so good as to express their dissatisfaction with this state 
of things. I have merely to observe, that I am not aware it is any 
business of theirs, and that I repel that exhibition of feeling with scorn, 
and with defiance ! " 

Mr. Micawber then shook hands with me again, and left me. 



OF DAVID COPPEREIELD. 289 



CHAPTER XXYIII. 

MR. MICAWBER's GAUNTLET. 

Until the day arrived on which I was to entertain my newly-found old 
friends, I lived principally on Dora and coffee. In my love-lorn condition, 
my appetite languished ; and I was glad of it, for I felt as though it would 
have been an act of perfidy towards Dora to have a natural relish for my 
dinner. The quantity of walking exercise I took, was not in this respect 
attended with its usual consequence, as the disappointment counteracted the 
fresh air. I have my doubts, too, founded on the acute experience acquired 
at this period of my life, whether a sound enjoyment of animal food can 
develop itself freely in any human subject who is always in torment from 
tight boots. I think the extremities require to be at peace before the 
stomach will conduct itself with vigour. 

On the occasion of this domestic little party, 1 did not repeat my former 
extensive preparations. I merely provided a pair of soles, a small leg of 
mutton, and a pigeon-pie. Mrs. Crupp broke out into rebellion on my 
first bashful hint in reference to the cooking of the fish and joint, and said, 
with a dignified sense of injury, " No ! No, sir ! You will not ask me 
sich a thing, for you are better acquainted with me than to suppose me 
capable of doing what I cannot do with ampial satisfaction to my own 
feelings!" But, in the end, a compromise was effected ; and Mrs. Crupp 
consented to achieve this feat, on condition that I dined from home for a 
fortnight afterwards. 

And here I may remark, that what I underwent from Mrs. Crupp, in 
consequence of the tyranny she established over me, was dreadful. I 
never was so much afraid of any one. We made a compromise of every- 
thing. If I hesitated, she was taken with that wonderful disorder which 
was always lying in ambush in her system, ready, at the shortest notice, 
to prey upon her vitals. If I rang the bell impatiently, after half-a-dozen 
unavailing modest pulls, and she appeared at last — which was not by 
any means to be relied upon — she would appear with a reproachful aspect, 
sink breathless on a chair near the door, lay her hand upon her nankeen 
bosom, and become so ill, that I was glad, at any sacrifice of brandy or 
anything else, to get rid of her. If I objected to having my bed made at 
five o'clock in the afternoon — which I do still think an uncomfortable 
arrangement — one motion of her hand towards the same nankeen region 
of wounded sensibility was enough to make me falter an apology. In 
short, I would have done anything in an honorable way rather than give 
Mrs. Crupp offence ; and she was the terror of my life. 

I bought a second-hand dumb-waiter for this dinner-party, in prefer- 
ence to re-engaging the handy young man ; against whom I had conceived a 
prejudice, in consequence of meeting him in the Strand, one Sunday 
morning, in a waistcoat remarkably like one of mine, which had been miss- 

u 



290 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

ing since the former occasion. The " young gal " was re-engaged ; but on 
the stipulation that she should only bring in the dishes, and then withdraw 
to the landing-place, beyond the outer door ; where a habit of sniffing she 
had contracted would be lost upon the guests, and where her retiring on 
the plates would be a physical impossibility. 

Having laid in the materials for a bowl of punch, to be compounded 
by Mr. Micawber ; having provided a bottle of lavender-water, two 
wax candles, a paper of mixed pins, and a pincushion, to assist Mrs. 
Micawber in her toilette, at my dressing-table ; having also caused the 
fire in my bed-room to be lighted for Mrs. Micawber's convenience ; and 
having laid the cloth with my own hands, I awaited the result with 
composure. 

At the appointed time, my three visitors arrived together. Mr. Micaw- 
ber with more shirt-collar than usual, and a new ribbon to his eye-glass ; 
Mrs. Micawber with her cap in a whitey -brown paper parcel; Traddles 
carrying the parcel, and supporting Mrs. Micawber on his arm. They 
were all delighted with my residence. When I conducted Mrs. Micawber 
to my dressing-table, and she saw the scale on which it was prepared for 
her, she was in such raptures, that she called Mr. Micawber to come in 
and look. 

" My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, " this is luxurious. This 
is a way of life which reminds me of the period when I was myself 
in a state of celibacy, and Mrs. Micawber had not yet been solicited to 
plight her faith at the Hymeneal altar." 

" He means, solicited by him, Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber 
archly. " He cannot answer for others." 

" My dear," returned Mr. Micawber with sudden seriousness, " I have 
no desire to answer for others. I am too well aware that when, in the 
inscrutable decrees of Fate, you were reserved for me, it is possible you 
may have been reserved for one, destined, after a protracted struggle, at 
length to fall a victim to pecuniary involvements of a complicated nature. 
I understand your allusion, my love. I regret it, but I can bear it." 

" Micawber !" exclaimed Mrs. Micawber, in tears. " Have I deserved 
this ! I, who never have deserted you ; who never toill desert you, 
Micawber ! " 

" My love," said Mr. Micawber, much affected, " you will forgive, and 
our old and tried friend Copperfield will, I am sure, forgive, the momentary 
laceration of a wounded spirit, made sensitive by a recent collision with 
the Minion of Power — in other words, with a ribald Turncock attached 
to the water-works — and will pity, not condemn, its excesses." 

Mr. Micawber then embraced Mrs. Micawber, and pressed my hand ; 
leaving me to infer from this broken allusion that his domestic supply 
of water had been cut off that afternoon, in consequence of default in the 
payment of the company's rates. 

To divert his thoughts from this melancholy subject, I informed Mr. 
Micawber that I relied upon him for a bowl of punch, and led him to the 
lemons. His recent despondency, not to say despair, was gone in a 
moment. I never saw a man so thoroughly enjoy himself amid the 
fragrance of lemon-peel and sugar, the odor of burning rum, and the 
steam of boiling water, as Mr. Micawber did that afternoon. It was 



m DAVID COPPEEPIELD. 291 

wonderful to see his face shining at us out of a thin cloud of these delicate 
fumes, as he stirred, and mixed, and tasted, and looked as if he were 
making, instead of punch, a fortune for his family down to the latest 
posterity. As to Mrs. Micawber, I don't know whether it was the 
eifect of the cap, or the lavender-water, or the pins, or the tire, or the 
wax candles, but she came out of my room, comparatively speaking, 
lovely. And the ]ark was never gayer than that excellent woman. 

I suppose — I never ventured to inquire, but I suppose — that Mrs. 
Crupp, after frying the soles, was taken ill. Because we broke down at 
that point. The leg of mutton came up very red within, and very pale 
without : besides having a foreign substance of a gritty nature sprinkled 
over it, as if it had had a fall into the ashes of that remarkable kitchen 
fire-place. But we were not in a condition to judge of this fact from the 
appearance of the gravy, forasmuch as the " young gal " had dropped it all 
upon the stairs — where it remained, by-the-by, in a long train, until it was 
worn out. The pigeon-pie was not bad, but it was a delusive pie : the 
crust being like a disappointing head, phrenologically speaking : full of 
lumps and bumps, with nothing particular underneath. In short, the 
banquet was such a failure that I should have been quite unhappy — about 
the failure, I mean, for I was always unhappy about Dora — if I had not 
been relieved by the great good-humour of my company, and by a bright 
suggestion from Mr. Micawber. 

" My dear friend Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, " accidents will 
occur in the best regulated families ; and in families not regulated by that 
pervading influence which sanctifies while it enhances the — a — I would say, 
in short, by the influence of Woman, in the lofty character of Wife, they 
may be expected with confidence, and must be borne with philosophy. If 
you will allow me to take the liberty of remarking that there are few 
comestibles better, in their way, than a Devil, and that I believe, with a 
little division of labor, we could accomplish a good one if the young 
person in attendance could produce a gridiron, I would put it to you, that 
this little misfortune may be easily repaired." 

There was a gridiron in the pantry, on which my morning rasher of 
bacon was cooked. We had it in, in a twinkling, and immediately applied 
ourselves to carrying Mr. Micawber's idea into effect. The division of 
labor to which he had referred was this : — Traddles cut the mutton into 
slices ; Mr. Micawber (who could do anything of this sort to perfection) 
covered them with pepper, mustard, salt, and cayenne ; I put them on the 
gridiron, turned them with a fork, and took them off, under Mr. Micawber's 
directions ; and Mrs. Micawber heated, and continually stirred, some 
mushroom ketchup in a little saucepan. When we had slices enough done 
to begin upon, we fell-to, with our sleeves still tucked up at the wrists, 
more slices sputtering and blazing on the fire, and our attention divided 
between the mutton on our plates, and the mutton then preparing. 

What with the novelty of this cookery, the excellence of it, the bustle 
of it, the frequent starting up to look after it, the frequent sitting down 
to dispose of it as the crisp slices came off the gridiron hot and hot, the 
being so busy, so flushed with the fire, so amused, and in the midst of 
such a tempting noise and savor, we reduced the leg of mutton to the 
bone. My own appetite came back miraculously. I am ashamed to 

U2 



292 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

record it, but I really believe I forgot Dora for a little while. I am satisfied 
that Mr. and Mrs. Micawber could not have enjoyed the feast more if 
they had sold a bed to provide it. Traddles laughed as heartily, almost the 
whole time, as he ate and worked. Indeed we all did, all at once ; and I 
dare say there never was a greater success. 

We were at the height of our enjoyment, and were all busily engaged, 
in our several departments, endeavouring to bring the last batch of slices 
to a state of perfection that should crown the feast, when I was aware of 
a strange presence in the room, and my eyes encountered those of the staid 
Littimer, standing hat in hand before me. 

" What 's the matter ! " I involuntarily asked. 

" I beg your pardon, sir, I was directed to come in. Is my master not 
here, sir ? " 

"No." 

"Have you not seen him, sir? " 

" No ; don't you come from him ? " 

" Not immediately so, sir." 

" Did he tell you you would find him here ? " 

" Not exactly so, sir. But I should think he might be here to-morrow, 
as he has not been here to-day." 

" Is he coming up from Oxford? " 

" I beg, sir," he returned respectfully, " that you will be seated, and 
allow me to do this." With which he took the fork from my unresisting 
hand, and bent over the gridiron, as if his whole attention were concen- 
trated on it. 

We should not have been much discomposed, I dare say, by the appear- 
ance of Steerforth himself, but we became in a moment the meekest of 
the meek before his respectable serving-man. Mr. Micawber, humming 
a tune, to show that he was quite at ease, subsided into his chair, with the 
handle of a hastily-concealed fork sticking out of the bosom of his coat, as 
if he had stabbed himself. Mrs. Micawber put on her brown gloves, and 
assumed a genteel languor. Traddles ran his greasy hands through his 
hair, and stood it bolt upright, and stared in confusion at the table-cloth. 
As for me, I was a mere infant at the head of my own table ; and hardly 
ventured to glance at the respectable phenomenon, who had come from 
Heaven knows where, to put my establishment to rights. 

Meanwhile he took the mutton off the gridiron, and gravely handed it 
round. We all took some, but our appreciation of it was gone, and we 
merely made a show of eating it. As we severally pushed away our plates, 
he noiselessly removed them, and set on the cheese. He took that off, 
too, when it was done with ; cleared the table ; piled everything on the 
dumb-waiter ; gave us our wine-glasses ; and, of his own accord, wheeled 
the dumb-waiter into the pantry. All this was done in a perfect manner, 
and he never raised his eyes from what he was about. Yet, his very 
elbows, when he had his back towards me, seemed to teem with the 
expression of his fixed opinion that I was extremely young. 
" Can I do anything more, sir ? " 

I thanked him and said, No ; but would he take no dinner himself? 

"None, I am obliged to you, sir." 

" Is Mr. Steerforth coming from Oxford ? " 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 293 

" I beg your pardon, sir ? " 

" Is Mr. Steerforth coming from Oxford? " 

" I sliould imagine that he might be here to-morrow, sir. I rather 
thought he might have been here to-day, sir. The mistake is mine, no 
doubt, sir." 

"If you should see him first — " said I. 

" If you '11 excuse me, sir, I don't think I shall see him first." 

" In case you do," said I, " pray say that I am sorry he was not here 
to-day, as an old schoolfellow of his was here." 

" Indeed, sir ! " and he divided a bow between me and Traddles, with 
a glance at the latter. 

He was moving softly to the door, when, in a forlorn hope of saying 
something naturally — which I never could, to this man — I said : 

"Oh! LittimerV' 

"Sir!" 

" Did you remain long at Yarmouth, that time ? " 

" Not particularly so, sir." 

" You saw the boat completed ? " 

" Yes, sir. I remained behind on purpose to see the boat completed." 

" I know ! " He raised his eyes to mine respectfully. " Mr. Steerforth 
has not seen it yet, I suppose ? " 

" I really can't say, sir. I think — but I really can't say, sir. I wish 
you good night, sir." 

He comprehended everybody present, in the respectful bow with which he 
followed these words, and disappeared. My visitors seemed to breathe 
more freely when he was gone ; but my own relief was very great, for 
besides the constraint, arising from that extraordinary sense of being at a 
disadvantage which I always had in this man's presence, my conscience 
had embarrassed me with whispers that I had mistrusted his master, and 
I could not repress a vague uneasy dread that he might find it out. How 
was it, having so little in reality to conceal, that I always did feel as if 
this man were finding "me out ? 

Mr. Micawber roused me from this reflection, which was blended with 
a certain remorseful apprehension of seeing Steerforth himself, by bestow- 
ing many encomiums on the absent Littimer as a most respectable fellow, 
and a thoroughly admirable servant. Mr. Micawber, I may remark, had 
taken his full share of the general bow, and had received it with infinite 
condescension. 

"But punch, my dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, tasting* it, 
" like time and tide, waits for no man. Ah ! it is at the present moment 
in high flavor. My love, will you give me your opinion ? " 

Mrs. Micawber pronounced it excellent. 

" Then I will drink," said Mr. Micawber, " if my friend Copperfield 
will permit me to take that social liberty, to the days when my friend 
Copperfield and myself were younger, and fought our way in the world 
side by side. I may say, of myself and Copperfield, in words we have 
sung together before now, that 

We twa' hae run about the braes 
And pu'd the gowans fine 



294 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

— in a figurative point of view — on several occasions. I am not exactly 
aware," said Mr. Micawber, with the old roll in his voice, and the old 
indescribable ah* of saying something genteel, " what go wans may be, but 
I have no doubt that Copperfield and myself would frequently have taken 
a pull at them, if it had been feasible." 

Mr. Micawber, at the then present moment, took a pull at his punch. So 
we all did : Traddles evidently lost in wondering at what distant time 
Mr. Micawber and I could possibly have been comrades in the battle of 
the world. 

" Ahem ! " said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat, and warming with 
the punch and with the fire. " My dear, another glass ? " 

Mrs. Micawber said it must be very little, but we couldn't allow that, 
so it was a glassful. 

" As we are quite confidential here, Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. 
Micawber, sipping her punch, " Mr. Traddles being a part of our domes- 
ticity, I should much like to have your opinion on Mr. Micawber's prospects. 
For corn," said Mrs. Micawber argumentatively, " as I have repeatedly 
said to Mr. Micawber, may be gentlemanly, but it is not remunerative. 
Commission to the extent of two and ninepence in a fortnight cannot, 
however limited our ideas, be considered remunerative." 

We were all agreed upon that. 

" Then," said Mrs. Micawber, who prided herself on taking a clear view 
of things, and keeping Mr. Micawber straight by her woman's wisdom, 
when he might otherwise go a little crooked, " then I ask myself this 
question. If corn is not to be relied upon, what is ? Are coals to be 
relied upon ? Not at all. We have turned our attention to that experi- 
ment, on the suggestion of my family, and we find it fallacious." 

Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair with his hands in his pockets, 
eyed us aside, and nodded his head, as much as to say that the case was very 
clearly put. 

" The articles of corn and coals," said Mrs. Micawber, still more argu- 
mentatively, " being equally out of the question, Mr. Copperfield, I 
naturally look round the world, and say, ' What is there in which a person 
of Mr. Micawber's talent is likely to succeed? ' And I exclude the doing 
anything on commission, because commission is not a certainty. What is 
best suited to a person of Mr. Micawber's peculiar temperament, is, I am 
convinced, a certainty." 

Traddles and I both expressed, by a feeling murmur, that this great 
discovery was no doubt true of Mr. Micawber, and that it did him much 
credit. 

" I will not conceal from you, my dear Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. 
Micawber, " that I have long felt the Brewing business to be particularly 
adapted to Mr. Micawber. Look at Barclay and Perkins ! Look at Tru- 
man, Hanbury, and Buxton ! It is on that extensive footing that Mr. 
Micawber, I know from my own knowledge of him, is calculated to shine ; 
and the profits, I am told, are e-NOR — mous ! But if Mr. Micawber cannot 
get into those firms — winch decline to answer his letters, when he offers 
his services even in an inferior capacity — what is the use of dwelling 
upon that idea ? None. I may have a conviction that Mr. Micawber's 
manners " — 



OF DAVID COPPEHPIELD. 295 

" Hem ! Really, my dear," interposed Mr. Micawber. 

" My love, be silent," said Mrs. Micawber, laying her brown giove on his 
hand. " I may have a conviction, Mr. Copperfield, that Mr. Micawber's 
manners peculiarly qualify him for the Banking business. I may argue 
within myself, that if I had a deposit at a banking-house, the manners of 
Mr. Micawber, as representing that banking-house, would inspire confi- 
dence, and must extend the connexion. But if the various banking-houses 
refuse to avail themselves of Mr. Micawber's abilities, or receive the offer 
of them with contumely, what is the use of dwelling upon that idea? 
None. As to originating a banking-business, I may know that there are 
members of my family who, if they chose to place their money in 
Mr. Micawber's hands, might found an establishment of that description. 
But if they do not choose to place their money in Mr. Micawber's hands — 
which they don't — what is the use of that ? Again I contend that we are 
no farther advanced than we were before." 

I shook my head, and said, "Not a bit." Traddles also shook his 
head, and said, "Not a bit." 

"What do I deduce from this? " Mrs. Micawber went on to say, still 
with the same air of putting a case lucidly. " What is the conclusion, my 
dear Mr. Copperfield, to which I am irresistibly brought ? Am I wrong- 
in saying, it is clear that we must live ? " 

I answered, "Not at all ! " and Traddles answered, "Not at all ! " and 
I found myself afterwards sagely adding, alone, that a person must either 
live or die. 

" Just so," returned Mrs. Micawber. " It is precisely that. And the fact 
is, my dear Mr. Copperfield, that we can not live without something 
widely different from existing circumstances shortly turning up. Now I am 
convinced, myself, and this I have pointed out to Mr. Micawber several times 
of late, that things cannot be expected to turn up of themselves. We 
must, in a measure, assist to turn them up. I may be wrong, but I have 
formed that opinion." 

Both Traddles and I applauded it highly. 

"Very well," said Mrs. Micawber. "Then what do I recommend? 
Here is Mr. Micawber, with a variety of qualifications — with great 
talent — " 

" Really, my love," said Mr. Micawber. 

" Pray, my dear, allow me to conclude. Here is Mr. Micawber, with a 
variety of qualifications, with great talent — I should say, with genius, 
but that may be the partiality of a wife — " 

Traddles and I both murmured "No." 

"And here is Mr. Micawber without any suitable position or employ- 
ment. Where does that responsibility rest ? Clearly on society. Then I 
would make a fact so disgraceful known, and boldly challenge society to 
set it right. It appears to me, my dear Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. 
Micawber, forcibly, " that what Mr. Micawber has to do, is to throw down 
the gauntlet to society, and say, in effect, ' Show me who will take that up. 
Let the party immediately step forward.' " 

I ventured to ask Mrs. Micawber how this was to be done. 

" By advertising," said Mrs. Micawber — " in all the papers. It appears 
to me, that what Mr. Micawber has to do, in justice to himself, in justice 



THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

to his family, and I will even go so far as to say in justice to society, by 
which he has been hitherto overlooked, is to advertise in all the papers ; 
to describe himself plainly as so and so, with such and such qualifications, 
and to put it thus : 'Note employ me, on remunerative terms, and address, 
post-paid, to W. M., Post Office, Camden Town.' " 

" This idea of Mrs. Micawber's, my dear Copperfield," said Mr. 
Micawber, making his shirt-collar meet in front of his chin, and glancing 
at me sideways, " is, in fact, the Leap to which I alluded, when I last had 
the pleasure of seeing you." 

"Advertising is rather expensive," I remarked, dubiously. 

" Exactly so ! " said Mrs. Micawber, preserving the same logical air. 
" Quite true, my dear Mr. Copperfield ! I have made the identical observa- 
tion to Mr. Micawber. It is for that reason especially, that 1 think Mr. 
Micawber ought (as I have already said, in justice to himself, in justice to 
his familv, and in justice to society) to raise a certain sum of money — on 
a bill." " 

Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair, trifled with his eye-glass, and 
cast his eyes up at the ceiling ; but I thought him observant of Traddles 
too, who was looking at the fire. 

" If no member of my family," said Mrs. Micawber, " is possessed of 
sufficient natural feebng to negotiate that bill — I believe there is a better 
business-term to express what I mean — " 

Mr. Micawber, with his eyes still cast up at the ceiling, suggested 
"Discount." 

" To discount that bill," said Mrs. Micawber, " then my opinion is, that 
Mr. Micawber should go into the City, should take that bill into the Money 
Market, and should dispose of it for what he can get. If the individuals 
in the Money Market oblige Mr. Micawber to sustain a great sacrifice, 
that is between themselves and their consciences. I view it, steadily, as 
an investment. I recommend Mr. Micawber, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to 
do the same ; to regard it as an investment which is sure of return, and 
to make up his mind to any sacrifice." 

I felt, but I am sure I don't know why, that this was self-denying and 
devoted in Mrs. Micawber, and I uttered a murmur to that effect. Trad- 
dles, who took his tone from me, did likewise, still looking at the fire. 

" I will not," said Mrs. Micawber, finishing her punch, and gathering 
her scarf about her shoulders, preparatory to her withdrawal to my bed- 
room : " I will not protract these remarks on the subject of Mr. Micawber's 
pecuniary affairs. At your fireside, my dear Mr. Copperfield, and in the 
presence of Mr. Traddles, who, though not so old a friend, is quite one 
of ourselves, I could not refrain from making you acquainted with 
the course I advise Mr. Micawber to take. I feel that the time is arrived 
when Mr. Micawber should exert himself and — I will add — assert himself, 
and it appears to me that these are the means. I am aware that I am 
merely a female, and that a masculine judgment is usually considered more 
competent to the discussion of such questions ; still I must not forget that, 
when I lived at home with my papa and mama, my papa was in the habit 
of saying, ' Emma's form is fragile, but her grasp of a subject is inferior to 
none.' That my papa was too partial, I well know ; but that he was an 
observer of character in some degree, my duty and my reason equally forbid 
me to doubt." 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 297 

With these words, and resisting our entreaties that she would grace the 
remaining circulation of the punch with her presence, Mrs. Micawber 
retired to my bed-room. And really I felt that she was a noble woman — 
the sort of woman who might have been a Eoman matron, and done all 
manner of heroic things, in times of public trouble. 

In the fervor of this impression, I congratulated Mr. Micawber on the 
treasure he possessed. So did Traddles. Mr. Micawber extended his hand 
to each of us in succession, and then covered his face with his pocket- 
handkerchief, which I think had more snuff upon it than he was aware of. 
He then returned to the punch, in the highest state of exhilaration. 

He was full of eloquence. He gave us to understand that in our chil- 
dren we lived again, and that, under the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, 
any accession to their number was doubly welcome. He said that Mrs. 
Micawber had latterly had her doubts on this point, but that he had dis- 
pelled them, and reassured her. As to her family, they were totally 
unworthy of her, and their sentiments were utterly indifferent to him, 
and they might — I quote his own expression — go to the Devil. 

Mr. Micawber then delivered a warm eulogy on Traddles. He said 
Traddles's was a character, to the steady virtues of which he (Mr. Micawber) 
could lay no claim, but which, he thanked Heaven, he could admire. He 
feelingly alluded to the young lady, unknown, whom Traddles had honored 
with his affection, and who had reciprocated that affection by honoring 
and blessing Traddles with her affection. Mr. Micawber pledged her. So 
did I. Traddles thanked us both, by saying, with a simplicity and 
honesty I had sense enough to be quite charmed with, "lam very much 
obliged to you indeed. And I do assure you, she 's the dearest girl ! — " 

Mr. Micawber took an early opportunity, after that, of hinting, with the 
utmost delicacy and ceremony, at the state of my affections. Nothing but 
the serious assurance of his friend Copperiield .to the contrary, he observed, 
could deprive him of the impression that his friend Copperfield loved and 
was beloved. After feeling very hot and uncomfortable for some time, 
and after a good deal of blushing, stammering, and denying, I said, 
having my glass in my hand, " Well ! I would give them D. ! " which so 
excited and gratified Mr. Micawber, that he ran with a glass of punch 
into my bed-room, in order that Mrs. Micawber might drink D., who 
drank it with enthusiasm, crying from within, in a shrill voice, " Hear, 
hear ! My dear Mr. Copperfield, I am delighted. Hear ! " and tapping 
at the wall, by way of applause. 

Our conversation, afterwards, took a more worldly turn ; Mr. Micawber 
telling us that he found Camden Town inconvenient, and that the first 
thing he contemplated doing, when the advertisement should have been 
the cause of something satisfactory turning up, was to move. He men- 
tioned a terrace at the western end of Oxford Street, fronting Hyde Park, 
on which he had always had his eye, but which he did not expect to attain 
immediately, as it would require a large establishment. There would 
probably be an interval, he explained, in which he should content himself 
with the upper part of a house, over some respectable place of business, 
— say inPiccadilly, — which would be a cheerful situation for Mrs. Micawber; 
and where, by throwing out a bow window, or carrying up the roof 
another story, or making some little alteration of that sort, they might 



298 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

live, comfortably and reputably, for a few years. Whatever was reserved 
for him, he expressly said, or wherever his abode might be, we might rely 
on this — there would always be a room for Traddles, and a knife and fork 
for me. We acknowledged his kindness ; and he begged us to forgive his 
having launched into these practical and business-like details, and to 
excuse it as natural in one who was making entirely new arrangements 
in life. 

Mrs. Micawber, tapping at the wall again, to know if tea were ready, 
broke up this particular phase of our friendly conversation. She made 
tea for us in a most agreeable manner ; and, whenever I went near her, in 
handing about the tea-cups and bread-and-butter, asked me, in a whisper, 
whether D. was fair, or dark, or whether she was short, or tall : or some- 
thing of that kind; which I think I liked. After tea, we discussed a 
variety of topics before the fire ; and Mrs. Micawber was good enough 
to sing us (in a small, thin, flat voice, which I remember to have consi- 
dered, when I first knew her, the very table-beer of acoustics) the favorite 
ballads of " The Dashing White Serjeant," and "Little Tafflin." Tor 
both of these songs Mrs. Micawber had been famous when she lived at 
home with her papa and mama. Mr. Micawber told us, that when he 
heard her sing the first one, on the first occasion of his seeing her beneath 
the parental roof, she had attracted his attention in an extraordinary 
degree ; but that when it came to Little Taffiin, he had resolved to win 
that woman or perish in the attempt. 

It was between ten and eleven o'clock when Mrs. Micawber rose to 
replace her cap in the whitey-brown paper parcel, and to put on her 
bonnet. Mr. Micawber took the opportunity of Traddles putting on his 
great coat, to slip a letter into my hand, with a whispered request that I 
would read it at my leisure. I also took the opportunity of my holding a 
candle over the bannisters to light them down, when Mr. Micawber was 
going first, leading Mrs. Micawber, and Traddles was following with the 
cap, to detain Traddles for a moment on the top of the stairs. 

" Traddles," said I, " Mr. Micawber don't mean any harm, poor fellow; 
but, if I were you, I wouldn't lend him anything." 

" My dear Copperfield," returned Traddles, smiling, " I haven't got 
anything to lend." 

"You have got a name, you know," said I. 

" Oh ! You call that something to lend? " returned Traddles, with a 
thoughtful look. 

" Certainly." 

" Oh ! " said Traddles. "Yes, to be sure ! I am very much obliged 
to you, Copperfield ; but — I am afraid I have lent him that already." 

" For the bill that is to be a certain investment ? " I inquired. 

" No," said Traddles. " Not for that one. This is the first I have 
heard of that one. I have been thinking that he will most likely 
propose that one, on the way home. Mine 's another." 

" I hope there will be nothing wrong about it," said I. 

" I hope not," said Traddles. " I should think not, though, because 
he told me, only the other day, that it was provided for. That was Mr. 
Micawber's expression. ' Provided for.' " 

Mr. Micawber looking up at this juncture to where we were standing, I 



OF DAVID CQPPEKFIELD. 299 

had only time to repeat my caution. Traddles thanked me, and descended. 
But I was much afraid, when I observed the good-natured manner in 
which he went down with the cap in his hand, and gave Mrs. Micawber 
his arm, that he would be carried into the Money Market neck and heels. 

I returned to my fireside, and was musing, half gravely and half 
laughing, on the character of Mr. Micawber and the old relations between 
us, when I heard a quick step ascending the stairs. At first, I thought 
it was Traddles coming back for something Mrs. Micawber had left behind ; 
but as the step approached, I knew it, and felt my heart beat high, and 
the blood rush to my face, for it was Steerforth's. 

I was never unmindful of Agnes, and she never left that sanctuary in 
my thoughts — if I may call it so — where I had placed her from the first. 
But when he *entered, and stood before me with his hand out, the dark- 
ness that had fallen on him changed to light, and I felt confounded and 
ashamed of having doubted one I loved so heartily. I loved her none the 
less ; I thought of her as the same benignant, gentle angel in my life ; 
I reproached myself, not her, with having done him an injury ; and I would 
have made him any atonement if I had known what to make, and how 
to make it. 

" Why, Daisy, old boy, dumb-foundered ! " laughed Steerforth, shaking 
my hand heartily, and throwing it gaily away. " Have I detected you in 
another feast, you Sybarite ! These Doctors' Commons fellows are the 
gayest men in town, I believe, and beat us sober Oxford people all to 
nothing ! " His bright glance went merrily round the room, as he took 
the seat on the sofa opposite to me, which Mrs. Micawber had recently 
vacated, and stirred the fire into a blaze. 

" I was so surprised at first," said I, giving him welcome with all the 
cordiality I felt, "that I had hardly breath to greet you with, Steerforth." 

" Well, the sight of me is good for sore eyes, as the Scotch say," 
replied Steerforth, " and so is the sight of you, Daisy, in full bloom. 
How are you, my Bacchanal ? " 

" I am very well," said I ; " and not at all Bacchanalian to-night, though 
I confess to another party of three." 

" All of whom I met in the street, talking loud in your praise," returned 
Steerforth. " Who 's our friend in the tights ? " 

I gave him the best idea I could, in a few words, of Mr. Micawber. 
He laughed heartily at my feeble portrait of that gentleman, and said he 
was a man to know, and he must know him. 

" But who do you suppose our other friend is ? " said I, in my turn. 

"Heaven knows," said Steerforth. " Not a bore, I hope ? I thought 
he looked a little like one." 

" Traddles ! " I replied, triumphantly. 

" Who 's he? " asked Steerforth, in his careless way. 

"Don't you remember Traddles? Traddles in our room at Salem 
House?" 

"Oh! That fellow ! " said Steerforth, beating a lump of coal on the 
top of the fire, with the poker. "Is he as soft as ever ? And where the 
deuce did you pick 1dm up ? " 

I extolled Traddles in reply, as highly as I could ; for I felt that Steer- 
forth rather slighted him. Steerforth, dismissing the subject with a light 



300 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

nod, and a smile, and the remark that he would be glad to see the old fellow 
too, for he had always been an odd fish, inquired if I could give him any- 
thing to eat ? During most of this short dialogue, when he had not been 
speaking in a wild vivacious manner, he had sat idly beating on the lump 
of coal with the poker. I observed that he did the same thing while I 
was getting out the remains of the pigeon-pie, and so forth. 

" Why, Daisy, here 's a supper for a king ! " he exclaimed, starting out 
of his silence with a burst, and taking his seat at the table. " I shall do 
it justice, for I have come from Yarmouth." 

" I thought you came from Oxford? " I returned. 

" Not I, " said Steerforth. " I have been seafaring — better employed." 

"Littimerwas hereto-day, to inquire for you," I remarked, "and I 
understood him that you were at Oxford ; though, now I *think of it, he 
certainly did not say so." 

" Littimer is a greater fool than I thought him, to have been inquiring 
for me at all," said Steerforth, jovially pouring out a glass of wine, and 
drinking to me. " As to understanding him, you are a cleverer fellow 
than most of us, Daisy, if you can do that." 

" That 's true, indeed," said T, moving my chair to the table. " So 
you have been at Yarmouth, Steerforth! " interested to know all about it. 
" Have you been there long ? " 

" No," he returned. " An escapade of a week or so." 

" And how are they all ? Of course, little Emily is not married yet ? " 

" Not yet. Going to be, I believe — in so many weeks, or months, or 
something or other. I have not seen much of 'em. By-the-by ; " he 
laid down his knife and fork, which he had been using with great dili- 
gence, and began feeling in his pockets ; " I have a letter for you." 

"From whom?" 

" Why, from your old nurse," he returned, taking some papers out of 
his breast pocket. " ' J. Steerforth, Esquire, debtor, to the Willing 
Mind ; ' that 's not it. Patience, and we '11 find it presently. Old what's- 
his-name 's in a bad way, and it 's about that, I believe." 

" Barkis, do you mean ? " 

" Yes ! " still feeling in his pockets, and looking over their contents : 
" it 's all over with poor Barkis, I am afraid. I saw a little apothecary 
there — surgeon, or whatever he is — who brought your worship into the 
world. He was mighty learned about the case, to me ; but the upshot of 
his opinion was, that the carrier was making his last journey rather fast. — 
Put your hand into the breast pocket of my great coat on the chair yonder, 
and I think you '11 find the letter. Is it there ? " 

" Here it is ! " said I. 

" That 's right ! " 

It was from Peggotty ; something less legible than usual, and brief. It 
informed me of her husband's hopeless state, and hinted at his being 
" a little nearer " than heretofore, and consequently more difficult to 
manage for his own comfort. It said nothing of her weariness and watch- 
ing, and praised him highly. It was written with a plain, unaffected, 
homely piety that I .knew to be genuine, and ended with " my duty to my 
ever darling " — meaning myself. 

While I deciphered it, Steerforth continued to eat and drink. 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 301 

" It 's a bad job," lie said, when I had done ; " but the sun sets every 
day, and people die every minute, and we mustn't be scared by the 
common lot. If we failed to hold our own, because that equal foot at 
all men's doors was heard knocking somewhere, every object in this world 
would slip from us. No ! Eide on ! Eough-shod if need be, smooth-shod 
if that will do, but ride on ! Eide over all obstacles, and win the race ! " 

" And win what race ? " said 1. 

" The race that one has started in," said he. " Eide on ! " 

I noticed, I remember, as he paused, looking at me with his handsome 
head a little thrown back, and his glass raised in his hand, that, though 
the freshness of the sea-wind was on his face, and it was ruddy, there 
were traces in it, made since I last saw it, as if he had applied himself to 
some habitual Strain of the fervent energy which, when roused, was so pas- 
sionately roused within him. I had it in my thoughts to remonstrate 
with him upon his desperate way of pursuing any fancy that he took — 
such as this buffetting of rough seas, and braving of hard weather, for 
example — when my mind glanced off to the immediate subject of our 
conversation again, and pursued that instead. 

" I tell you what, Steerforth," said I, " if your high spirits will listen 
to me " — 

"They are potent spirits, and will do whatever you like," he answered, 
moving from the table to the fireside again. 

" Then I tell you what, Steerforth. I think I will go down and see 
my old nurse. It is not that I can do her any good, or render her any real 
service ; but she is so attached to me that my visit will have as much 
effect on her, as if I could do both. She will take it so kindly that it will 
be a comfort and support to her. It is no great effort to make, I am sure, 
for such a friend as she has been to me. Wouldn't you go a day's 
journey, if you were in my place ?" 

His face was thoughtful, and he sat considering a little before he 
answered, in a low voice, " Well ! Go. You can do no harm." 

" You have just come back," said I, " and it would be in vain to ask 
you to go with me?" 

" Quite," he returned. "I am for Highgate to-night. I have not 
seen my mother this long time, and it lies upon my conscience, for it 's 
something to be loved as she loves her prodigal son. — Bah ! Nonsense ! — 
You mean to go to-morrow, I suppose ? " he said, holding me out at arm's 
length, with a hand on each of my shoulders. 

" Yes, I think so." 

" Well, then, don't go till next day. I wanted you to come and stay 
a few days with us. Here I am, on purpose to bid you, and you fly off to 
Yarmouth!" 

" You are a nice fellow to talk of flying off, Steerforth, who are always 
running wild on some unknown expedition or other ! " 

He looked at me for a moment without speaking, and then rejoined, still 
holding me as before, and giving me a shake : 

" Come ! Say the next day, and pass as much of to-morrow as you can 
with us ! Who knows when we may meet again, else ? Come ! Say the 
next day ! I want you to stand between Eosa Dartle and me, and keep 
us asunder." 

" Would you love each other too much, without me?" 



302 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Yes ; or hate," laughed Steerforth ; " no matter which. Come ! Say 
the next clay ! " 

I said the next day ; and he put on his great-coat, and lighted his cigar, 
and set off to walk home. Finding him in this intention, I put on my 
own great-coat (but did not light my own cigar, having had enough of 
that for one while) and walked with him as far as the open road : a dull 
road, then, at night. He was in great spirits all the way ; and when we 
parted, and I looked after him going so gallantly and airily homeward, 
I thought of his saying, " Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race ! " 
and wished, for the first time, that he had some worthy race to run. 

I was undressing in my own room, when Mr. Micawber's letter tumbled 
on the floor. Thus reminded of it, I broke the seal and read as follows. 
It was dated an hour and a half before dinner. I am not sure whether I 
have mentioned that, when Mr. Micawber was at any particularly desperate 
crisis, he used a sort of legal phraseology : which he seemed to think 
equivalent to winding up his affairs. 

" Sir — for I dare not say, my dear Copperfield, 

" It is expedient that I should inform you that the undersigned is 
Crushed. Some flickering efforts to spare you the premature knowledge 
of his calamitous position, you may observe in him this day ; but hope 
has sunk beneath the horizon, and the undersigned is Crushed. 

" The present communication is penned within the personal range 
(I cannot call it the society) of an individual, in a state closely bordering 
on intoxication, employed by a broker. That individual is in legal posses- 
sion of the premises, under a distress for rent. His inventory includes, 
not only the chattels and effects of every description belonging to the 
undersigned, as yearly tenant of this habitation, but also those apper- 
taining to Mr. Thomas Traddles, lodger, a member of the Honourable 
Society of the Inner Temple. 

" If any drop of gloom were wanting in the overflowing cup, which is 
now ' commended ' (in the language of an immortal Writer) to the lips of the 
undersigned, it would be found in the fact, that a friendly acceptance granted 
to the undersigned, by the before-mentioned Mr. Thomas Traddles, for the 
sum of £23 4«. 9%d. is over due, and is not provided for. Also, in the 
fact, that the living responsibilities clinging to the undersigned, will, in the 
course of nature, be increased by the sum of one more helpless victim ; whose 
miserable appearance may be looked for — in round numbers — at the expira- 
tion of a period not exceeding six lunar months from the present date. 

" After premising thus much, it would be a work of supererogation to 
add, that dust and ashes are for ever scattered 
"On 
"The 

" Head 

"Of 

* WlLKINS MlCAW r BEU." 

Poor Traddles ! I knew enough of Mr. Micawber by this time, to 
foresee that lie might be expected to recover the blow ; but my night's 
rest was sorely distressed by thoughts of Traddles, and of the curate's 
daughter, who was one of ten, down in Devonshire, and who was such 
a dear girl, and who would wait for Traddles (ominous praise !) until she 
was sixty, or any age that could be mentioned. 



0E DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 303 



CHAPTEE XXIX. 

I VISIT STEERFORTH AT HIS HOME, AGAIN. 

I mentioned to Mr. Spenlow in the morning, that I wanted leave of 
absence for a short time ; and as I was not in the receipt of any salary, 
and consequently was not obnoxious to the implacable Jorkins, there was 
no difficulty about it. I took that opportunity, with my voice sticking in 
my throat, and my sight failing as I uttered the words, to express my hope 
that Miss Spenlow was quite well; to which Mr. Spenlow replied, with no 
more emotion than if he had been speaking of an ordinary human being, 
that he was much obliged to me, and she was very well. 

We articled clerks, as germs of the patrician order of proctors, were 
treated with so much consideration, that I was almost my own master at 
all times. As I did not care, however, to get to Highgate before one or 
two o'clock in the day, and as we had another little excommunication case 
in court that morning, which was called The office of the Judge promoted 
by Tipkins against Bullock for his soul's correction, I passed an hour or 
two in attendance on it with Mr. Spenlow very agreeably. It arose out of 
a scuffle between two churchwardens, one of whom was alleged to have 
pushed the other against a pump ; the handle of which pump projecting 
into a school-house, which school-house was under a gable of the church - 
roof, made the push an ecclesiastical offence. It was an amusing case ; and 
sent me up to Highgate, on the box of the stage-coach, thinking about the 
Commons, and what Mr. Spenlow had said about touching the Commons 
and bringing down the country. 

Mrs. Steerforth was pleased to see me, and so was Eosa Dartle. 
I was agreeably surprised to find that Littimer was not there, and that we 
were attended by a modest little parlor-maid, Avith blue ribbons in her cap, 
whose eye it was much more pleasant, and much less disconcerting, to 
catch by accident, than the eye of that respectable man. But what I 
particularly observed, before I had been half-an-hour in the house, was the 
close and attentive watch Miss Dartle kept upon me ; and the lurking 
manner in which she seemed to compare my face with Steerforth's, and 
Steerforth' s with mine, and to lie in wait for something to come out 
between the two. So surely as I looked towards her, did I see that eager 
visage, with its gaunt black eyes and searching brow, intent on mine ; or 
passing suddenly from mine to Steerforth's ; or comprehending both of 
us at once. In this lynx-like scrutiny she was so far from faltering 
when she saw I observed it, that at such a time she only fixed her piercing 
look upon me with a more intent expression still. Blameless as I was, and 
knew that I was, in reference to any wrong she could possibly suspect me 
of, I shrunk before her strange eyes, quite unable to endure their 
hungry lustre. 

All day, she seemed to pervade the whole house. If I talked to 



304 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Steerforth in his room, I heard her dress rustle in the little gallery outside. 
When he and I engaged in some of our old exercises on the lawn behind 
the house, I saw her face pass from window to window, like a wandering 
light, until it fixed itself in one, and watched us. When we all four went 
out walking in the afternoon, she closed her thin hand on my arm like a 
spring, to keep me back, while Steerforth and his mother went on out of 
hearing : and then spoke to me. 

"You have been a long time,'* she said, "without coming here. Is 
your profession really so engaging and interesting as to absorb your whole 
attention ? I ask because I always want to be informed, when I am 
ignorant. Is it really, though? 

I replied that I liked it well enough, but that I certainly could not claim 
so much for it. 

" Oh ! I am glad to know that, because I always like to be put right 
when I am wrong," said Kosa Dartle. " You mean it is a little dry, 
perhaps ? " 

Well, I replied ; perhaps it icas a little dry. 

" Oh ! and that 's a reason why you want relief and change — excite- 
ment, and all that ? " said she. " Ah ! very true ! But isn't it a little 
Eh ?— for him ; I don't mean you ? " 

A quick glance of her eye towards the spot where Steerforth was walk- 
ing, with his mother leaning on his arm, showed me whom she meant ; but 
beyond that, I was quite lost. And I looked so, I have no doubt. 

" Don't it — I don't say that it does, mind I want to know — don't it 
rather engross him ? Don't it make him, perhaps, a little more remiss 
than usual in his visits to his blindly doting — eh ? " With another 
quick glance at them, and such a glance at me as seemed to look into my 
innermost thoughts. 

" Miss Dartle," I returned, " pray do not think — " 

" I don't ! " she said. " Oh, dear me, don't suppose that I think any- 
thing ! I am not suspicious. I only ask a question. I don't state any 
opinion. I want to found an opinion on what you tell me. Then, it 's 
not so ? Well ! I am very glad to know it." 

" It certainly is not the fact," said I, perplexed, " that I am accountable 
for Steerforth's having been away from home longer than usual — if he has 
been : which I really don't know at this moment, unless I understand it 
from you. I have not seen him this long while, until last night." 

" No ? " 

" Indeed, Miss Dartle, no ! " 

As she looked full at me, I saw her face grow sharper and paler, and 
the marks of the old wound lengthen out until it cut through the dis- 
figured lip, and deep into the nether lip, and slanted down the face. 
There was something positively awful to me in this, and in the brightness 
of her eyes, as she said, looking fixedly at me : 

" What is he doing ? " 

I repeated the words, more to myself than her, being so amazed. 

" What is he doing ? " she said, with an eagerness that seemed enough 
to consume her like a fire. " In what is that man assisting him, who 
never looks at me without an inscrutable falsehood in his eyes ? If you 
are honorable and faithful, I don't ask you to betray your friend. I ask 



OF DAVID COPPEltFIELD. 305 

you only to tell me, is it anger, is it hatred, is it pride, is it restlessness, 
is it some wild fancy, is it love, what is it, that is leading him ? " 

"Miss Dartle," I returned, "how shall I tell you, so that you will 
believe me, that I know of nothing in Steerforth different from what there 
was when I first came here. I can think of nothing. I firmly believe 
there is nothing. I hardly understand, even, what you mean." 

As she still looked fixedly at me, a twitching or throbbing, from which 
I could not dissociate the idea of pain, came into that cruel mark ; and 
lifted up the corner of her lip as if with scorn, or with a pity that despised 
its object. She put her hand upon it hurriedly — a hand so thin and 
delicate, that when I had seen her hold it up before the fire to shade her 
face, I had compared it in my thoughts to fine porcelain — and saying, in 
a quick, fierce, passionate way, " I swear you to secresy about this ! " 
said not a word more. 

Mrs. Steerforth was particularly happy in her son's society, and Steer- 
forth was, on this occasion, particularly attentive and respectful to her. 
It was very interesting to me to see them together, not only on account of 
their mutual affection, but because of the strong personal resemblance 
between them, and the manner in which what was haughty or impetuous in 
him was softened by age and sex, in her, to a gracious dignity. I thought, 
more than once, that it was well no serious cause of division had ever 
come between them ; or two such natures — I ought rather to express it, 
two such shades of the same nature — might have been harder to reconcile 
than the two extremest opposites in creation. The idea did not originate 
in my own discernment, I am bound to confess, but in a speech of Rosa 
Dartle's. 

She said at dinner : 

"Oh,'but do tell me, though, somebody, because I have been thinking 
about it all day, and I want to know." 

" You want to know what, Eosa?" returned Mrs. Steerforth. " Pray, 
pray, Eosa, do not be mysterious." 

" Mysterious ! " she cried. " Oh ! really ? Do you consider me so ? " 
" Do I constantly entreat you," said Mrs. Steerforth, " to speak plainly, 
in your own natural manner ? " 

" Oh ! then, this is not my natural manner ? " she rejoined. " Now 
you must really bear with me, because I ask for information. We never 
know ourselves." 

" It has become a second nature," said Mrs. Steerforth, without any 
displeasure ; " but I remember, — and so must you, I think, — when your 
manner was different, Eosa ; when it was not so guarded, and was more 
trustful." 

" I am sure you are right," she returned ; " and so it is that bad habits 
grow upon one ! Eeally ? Less guarded and more trustful ? How can 
I, imperceptibly, have changed, I wonder ! Well, that 's very odd ! I 
must study to regain my former self." 

" I wish you would," said Mrs. Steerforth, with a smile. 
" Oh ! I really will, you know ! " she answered. " I will learn frankness 
from— let me see — from James." 

" You cannot learn frankness, Eosa," said Mrs. Steerforth, quickly — for 
there was always some effect of sarcasm in what Eosa Dartle said, though 

x 



306 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

it was said, as this was, in the most unconscious manner in the world — " in 
a better school." 

" That I am sure of," she answered, with uncommon fervour. " If I 
am sure of anything, of course, you know, I am sure of that." 

Mrs. Steerforth appeared to me to regret having been a little nettled ; 
for she presently said, in a kind tone : 

" Well, my dear Rosa, we have not heard what it is that you want to 
be satisfied about ? " 

"That I want to be satisfied about?" she replied, with provoking 
coldness. " Oh ! It was only whether people, who are like each other in 
their moral constitution — is that the phrase ? " 

" It's as good a phrase as another," said Steerforth. 

" Thank you : — whether people, who are like each other in their moral 
constitution, are in greater danger than people not so circumstanced, sup- 
posing any serious cause of variance to arise between them, of being 
divided angrily and deeply ? " 

" I should say yes," said Steerforth. 

" Should you? " she retorted. " Dear me ! Supposing then, for instance, 
— any unlikely thing will do for a supposition — that you and your 
mother were to have a serious quarrel." 

" My dear Rosa," interposed Mrs. Steerforth, laughing good-naturedly, 
" suggest some other supposition ! James and I know our duty to each 
other better, I pray Heaven ! " 

" Oh ! " said Miss Dartle, nodding her head thoughtfully. " To be sure. 
That would prevent it ? Why, of course it would. Ex-actly. Now, I am 
glad I have been so foolish as to put the case, for it is so very good to 
know that your duty to each other would prevent it ! Thank you veiy 
much." 

One other little circumstance connected with Miss Dartle I must not 
omit ; for I had reason to remember it thereafter, when all the irremediable 
past was rendered plain. During the whole of this day, but especially 
from this period of it, Steerforth exerted himself with his utmost skill, 
and that was with his utmost ease, to charm this singular creature into a 
pleasant and pleased companion. That he should succeed, was no matter 
of surprise to me. That she should struggle against the fascinating 
influence of his delightful art — delightful nature I thought it then — did 
not surprise me either ; for I knew that she was sometimes jaundiced 
and perverse. I saw her features and her manner slowly change ; I saw 
her look at him with growing admiration ; I saw her try, more and more 
faintly, but always angrily, as if she condemned a weakness in herself, 
to resist the captivating power that he possessed ; and finally I saw her 
sharp glance soften, and her smile become quite gentle, and I ceased to be 
afraid of her as I had really been all day, and we all sat about the fire, 
talking and laughing together, with as little reserve as if we had been 
children. 

Whether it was because we had sat there so long, or because Steerforth 
was resolved not to lose the advantage he had gained, I do not know ; 
but we did not remain in the dining-room more than five minute's after 
her departure. " She is playing her harp," said Steerforth, softly, at the 



OF DAVID COPPEREIELD. 307 

drawing-room door, " and nobody but my mother has heard her do that, 
I believe, these three years." He said it with a curious smile, which was 
gone directly ; and we went into the room and found her alone. 

" Don't get up ! " said Steerforth (which she had already done) ; "my 
dear Eosa, don't ! Be kind for once, and sing us an Irish song." 

" What do you care for an Irish song? " she returned. 

" Much ! " said Steerforth. " Much more than for any other. Here is 
Daisy, too, loves music from his soul. Sing us an Irish song, Eosa ! and 
let me sit and listen as I used to do." 

He did not touch her, or the chair from which she had risen, but sat 
himself near the harp. She stood beside it for some little while, in a curious 
way, going through the motion of playing it with her right hand, but not 
sounding it. At length she sat down, and drew it to her with one sudden 
action, and played and sang. 

I don't know what it was, in her touch or voice, that made that song 
the most unearthly I have ever heard in my life, or can imagine. 
There was something fearful in the reality of it. It was as if it had 
never been written, or set to music, but sprung out of the passion 
within her; which found imperfect utterance in the low sounds of her 
voice, and crouched again when all was still. I was dumb when she 
leaned beside the harp again, playing it, but not sounding it, with her 
right hand. 

A minute more, and this had roused me from my trance : — Steerforth 
had left his seat, and gone to her, and had put his arm laughingly 
about her, and had said, " Come, Eosa, for the future we will love each 
other very much ! " And she had struck him, and had thrown him off with 
the fury of a wild cat, and had burst out of the room. 

" What is the matter with Eosa ? " said Mrs. Steerforth, coming in. 

" She has been an angel, mother," returned Steerforth, " for a little 
while ; and has run into the opposite extreme, since, by way of com- 
pensation." 

" You should be careful 'not to irritate her, James. Her temper has 
been soured, remember, and ought not to be tried." 

Eosa did not come back ; and no other mention was made of her, until 
I went with Steerforth into his room to say Good night. Then he 
laughed about her, and asked me if I had ever seen such a fierce little 
piece of incomprehensibility. 

I expressed as much of my astonishment as was then capable of 
expression, and asked if he could guess what it was that she had taken 
so much amiss, so suddenly. 

" Oh, Heaven knows," said Steerforth. " Any thing you like — or 
nothing ! I told you she took every thing, herself included, to a grind- 
stone, and sharpened it. She is an edge-tool, and requires great care 
in dealing with. She is always dangerous. Good night ! " 

" Good night ! " said I, " ray dear Steerforth ! I shall be gone before 
you wake in the morning. Good night ! " 

He was unwilling to let me go ; and stood, holding me out, with a hand 
on each of my shoulders, as he had done in my own room. 

"Daisy," he said, with a smile — "for though that's not the 

x2 



808 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

name your 'Godfathers and Godmothers gave you, it 's the name I like 
best to call you by — and I wish, I wish, I wish, you could give it 
tome!" 

" Why so I can, if I choose," said I. 

" Daisy, if anything should ever separate us, you must think of me at 
my best, old boy. Come ! Let us make that bargain. Think of me at my 
best, if circumstances should ever part us ! " 

" You have no best to me, Steerforth," said I, " and no worst. You 
are always equally loved, and cherished in my heart." 

So much compunction for having ever wronged him, even by a shapeless 
thought, did I feel within me, that the confession of having done so was 
rising to my lips. But for the reluctance I had, to betray the confidence 
of Agnes, but for my uncertainty how to approach the subject with no 
risk of doing so, it would have reached them before he said, " God bless 
you, Daisy, and good night ! " In my doubt, it did not reach them ; and 
we shook hands, and we parted. 

I was up with the dull dawn, and, having dressed as quietly as I could, 
looked into his room. He was fast asleep ; lying, easily, with his head 
upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school. 

The time came in its season, and that was very soon, when I almost 
wondered that nothing troubled his repose, as I looked at him. But he 
slept — let me think of him so again — as I had often seen him sleep at 
school ; and thus, in this silent hour, I left him. 

— Never more, oh God forgive you, Steerforth ! to touch that passive 
hand in love and friendship. Never, never, more! 



CHAPTER XXX. 

A LOSS. 

I got down to Yarmouth in the evening, and went to the inn. I knew 
that Peggotty's spare room — my room — was likely to have occupation 
enough in a little while, if that great Visitor, before whose presence all the 
living must give place, were not already in the house ; so I betook myself 
to the inn, and dined there, and engaged my bed. 

It was ten o'clock when I went out. Many of the shops were shut, 
and the town was dull. When I came to Omer and Joram's, I found the 
shutters up, but the shop door standing open. As I could obtain a per- 
spective view of Mr. Omer inside, smoking his pipe by the parlor-door, 
I entered, and asked him how he was. 

" Why, bless my life and soul! " said Mr. Omer, "how do you find 
yourself? Take a seat. — Smoke not disagreeable, I hope? " 

" By no means," said I. " I like it — in somebody else's pipe." 

" What, not in your own, eh ? " Mr. Omer returned, laughing. " All 
the better, sir. Bad habit for a young man. Take a seat. I smoke, 
mvself, for the asthma." 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 309 

Mr. Omer had made room for me, and placed a chair. He now sat 
down again, very much out of breath, gasping at his pipe as if it contained 
a supply of that necessary, without which he must perish. 

" I am sorry to have heard bad news of Mr. Barkis," said I. 

Mr. Omer looked at me, with a steady countenance, and shook his head. 

" Do you know how he is to-night ? " I asked. 

" The very question I should have put to you, sir," returned Mr. Omer, 
" but on account of delicacy. It 's one of the drawbacks of our line of 
business. When a party 's ill, we cant ask how the party is." 

The difficulty had not occurred to me ; though I had had my apprehensions 
too, when I went in, of hearing the old tune. On its being mentioned, 
I recognised it, however, and said as much. 

" Yes, yes, you understand," said Mr. Omer, nodding his head. " We 
durstn't do it. Bless you, it would be a shock that the generality of parties 
mightn't recover, to say ' Omer and Jorams's compliments, and how do 
you find yourself this morning ' — or this afternoon — as it may be." 

Mr. Omer and I nodded at each other, and Mr. Omer recruited his 
wind by the aid of his pipe. 

" It 's one of the things that cut the trade off from attentions they 
could often wish to show," said Mr. Omer. " Take myself. If I have 
known Barkis a year, to move to as he went by, I have known him forty 
year. But I can't go and say ' how is he ? ' " 

I felt it was rather hard on Mr. Omer, and I told him so. 

" I 'm not more self-interested, I hope, than another man," said 
Mr. Omer. " Look at me ! My wind may fail me at any moment, and it 
ain't likely that, to my own knowledge, I 'd be self-interested under such 
circumstances. I say it ain't likely, in a man who knows his wind will 
go, when it does go, as if a pair of bellows was cut open ; and that man a 
grandfather," said Mr. Omer. 

I said, "Not at all." 

" It ain't that I complain of my line of business," said Mr. Omer. 
" It ain't that. Some good and some bad goes, no doubt, to all callings. 
What I wish, is, that parties were brought up stronger-minded." 

Mr. Omer, with a very complacent and amiable face, took several puffs 
in silence ; and then said, resuming his first point. 

" Accordingly we're obleeged, in ascertaining how Barkis goes on, to limit 
ourselves to Em'ly. She knows what our real objects are, and she don't 
have any more alarms or suspicions about us, than if we was so many 
lambs. Minnie and Joram have just stepped down to the house, in fact 
(she's there, after hours, helping her aunt a bit), to ask her how he is to- 
night ; and if you was to please to wait till they come back, they'd give 
you full partic'lers. Will you take something ? A glass of srub and water, 
now? I smoke on srub and water, myself," said Mr. Omer, taking 
up his glass, " because it's considered softening to the passages, by 
which this troublesome breath of mine gets into action. But, Lord bless 
you," said Mr. Omer, huskily, " it ain't the passages that's out of order ! 
* Give me breath enough,' says I to my daughter Minnie, ' and I'W. find 
passages, my dear.' " 

He really had no breath to spare, and it was very alarming to see him 
laugh. When he was again in a condition to be talked to, I thanked him 



310 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

for the proffered refreshment, which I declined, as I had just had dinner ; 
and, observing that I would wait, since he was so good as to invite me, until 
his daughter and his son-in-law came back, I inquired how little Emily 
was ? 

" Well, sir," said Mr. Omer, removing bis pipe, that he might rub his 
chin ; " I tell you truly, I shall be glad when her marriage has taken 
place." 

" Why so?" I inquired. 

" Well, she's unsettled at present," said Mr. Omer. " It ain't that 
she's not as pretty as ever, for she's prettier — I do assure you, she is prettier. 
It ain't that she don't work as well as ever, for she does. She was 
worth any six, and she is worth any six. But somehow she wants heart. 
If you understand," said Mr. Omer, after rubbing his chin again, and 
smoking a little, " what I mean in a general way by the expression, 
' A long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull altogether, my hearties, 
hurrah ! ' I should say to you, that that was — in a general way — what 
I miss in Em'ry." 

Mr. Oiner's face and manner went for so much, that I could conscien- 
tiously nod my head, as divining his meaning. My quickness of appre- 
hension seemed to please him, and he went on : 

" Now, I consider this is principally on account of her being in an 
unsettled state, you see. We have talked it over a good deal, her uncle 
and myself, and her sweetheart and myself, after business ; and 1 consider 
it is principally on account of her being unsettled. You must always 
recollect of Em'ly," said Mr. Omer, shaking his head gently, " that she's a 
most extraordinary affectionate little thing. The proverb says, ' You can't 
make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.' Well, I don't know about that. 
I rather think you may, if you begin early in life. She has made a home 
out of that old boat, sir, that stone and marble couldn't beat." 

" I am sure she has ! " said I. 

" To see the clinging of that pretty little thing to her uncle," said 
Mr. Omer ; " to see the way she holds on to him, tighter and tighter, and 
closer and closer, every day, is to see a sight. Now, you know, there's a 
struggle going on when that's the case. Why should it be made a longer 
one than is needful ? " 

I listened attentively to the good old fellow, and acquiesced, with all my 
heart, in what he said. 

" Therefore, I mentioned to them," said Mr. Omer, in a comfortable, 
easy-going tone, " this. I said, ' Now, don't consider Em'ly nailed down 
in point of time, at all. Make it your own time. Her services have been 
more valuable than was supposed ; her learning has been quicker than 
was supposed ; Omer and Joram can run their pen through what remains ; 
and she's free when you wish. If she likes to make any little arrange- 
ment, afterwards, in the way of doing any little thing for us at home, very 
well. If she don't -, very well still. We 're no losers, anyhow.' For — 
don't you see," said Mr. Omer, touching me with his pipe, "it ain't 
likely that a man so short of breath as myself, and a grandfather too, 
would go and strain points with a little bit of a blue-eyed blossom, like 
hert" 

n Not at all, I am certain," said I. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 311 

" Not at all ! You 're right 1 " said Mr. Omer. " Well, sir, her cousin 
— you know it 's a cousin she 's going to be married to ? " 

" Oh yes," I replied. " I know him well." 

" Of course you do," said Mr. Omer. " Well, sir ! Her cousin being, 
as it appears, in good work, and well to do, thanked me in a very manly 
sort of manner for this (conducting himself altogether, I must say, in a way 
that gives me a high opinion of him), and went and took as comfortable a 
little house as you or I could wish to clap eyes on. That little house is 
now furnished, right through, as neat and complete as a do]l's parlor ; 
and but for Barkis's illness having taken this bad turn, poor fellow, they 
would have been man and wife — I dare say, by this time. As it is, there 's 
a postponement." 

"And Emily, Mr. Omer?" I inquired. "Has she become more 
settled ? " 

* Why that, you know," he returned, rubbing his double chin again, 
" can't naturally be expected. The prospect of the change and separation, 
and all that, is, as one may say, close to her and far away from her, both at 
once. Barkis's death needn't put it off much, but his lingering might. 
Anyway, it 's an uncertain state of matters, you see." 

" I see," said I. 

* Consequently," pursued Mr. Omer, " Em'ly *s still a little down, and 
a little fluttered ; perhaps, upon the whole, she 's more so than she was. 
Every day she seems to get fonder and fonder of her uncle, and more loth 
to part from all of us. A kind word from me brings the tears into her 
eyes ; and if you was to see her with my daughter Minnie's little girl, 
you 'd never forget it. Bless my heart alive ! " said Mr. Omer, pondering, 
" how she loves that child ! " 

Having so favourable an opportunity, it occurred to me to ask Mr. 
Omer, before our conversation should be interrupted by the return of his 
daughter and her husband, whether he knew anything of Martha. 

" Ah ! " he rejoined, shaking his head, and looking very much dejected. 
" No good. A sad story, sir, however you come to know it. I never 
thought there was harm in the girl. I wouldn't wish to mention it before 
my daughter Minnie — for she 'd take me up directly- — but I never did. 
None of us ever did." 

Mr. Omer, hearing his daughter's footstep before I heard it, touched me 
with his pipe, and shut up one eye, as a caution. She and her husband 
came in immediately afterwards. 

Their report was, that Mr. Barkis was " as bad as bad could be ; " that 
he was quite unconscious ; and that Mr. Chillip had mournfully said in the 
kitchen, on going away just now, that the College of Physicians, the 
College of Surgeons, and Apothecaries' Hall, if they were all called in 
together, couldn't help him. He was past both Colleges, Mr. Chillip said, 
and the Hall could only poison him. 

Hearing this, and learning that Mr. Peggotty was there, I determined 
to go to the house at once. I bade good night to Mr. Omer, and to Mr. 
and Mrs. Joram ; and directed my steps thither, with a solemn feeling, 
which made Mr. Barkis quite a new and different creature. 

My low tap at the door was answered by Mr. Peggotty. He was not 
so much surprised to see me as I had expected. I remarked this in 



312 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Peggotty, too, when she came down ; and I have seen it since ; and I think, 
in the expectation of that dread surprise, all other changes and surprises 
dwindle into nothing. 

I shook hands with Mr. Peggotty, and passed into the kitchen, while he 
softly closed the door. Little Emily was sitting by the fire, with her 
hands before her face. Ham was standing near her. 

We spoke in whispers ; listening, between whiles, for any sound in the 
room above. I had not thought of it on the occasion of my last visit, but 
how strange it was to me now, to miss Mr. Barkis out of the kitchen ! 

" This is very kind of you, Mas'r Davy," said Mr. Peggotty. 

" It is oncommon kind," said Ham. 

" Em'ly, my dear," cried Mr. Peggotty. " See here ! Here 's Mas'r 
Davy come ! What, cheer up, pretty ! Not a wured to Mas'r Davy ? " 

There was a trembling upon her, that I can see now. The coldness of 
her hand when I touched it, I can feel yet. Its only sign of animation 
was to shrink from mine ; and then she glided from the chair, and, creeping 
to the other side of her uncle, bowed herself, silently and trembling still, 
upon his breast. 

"It 's such a loving art," said Mr. Peggotty, smoothing her rich hair 
with his great hard hand, " that it can't abear the sorrer of this. It 's 
nat'ral in young folk, Mas'r Davy, when they're new to these here trials, 
and timid, like my little bird, — it 's nat'ral." 

She clung the closer to him, but neither lifted up her face, nor spoke a 
word. 

" It 's gettmg late, my dear," said Mr. Peggotty, " and here 's Ham 
come fur to take you home. Theer ! Glo along with t' other loving art ! 
What, Em'ly ? Eh, my pretty ? " 

The sound of her voice had not reached me, but he bent his head as if 
he listened to her, and then said : 

" Let you stay with your uncle ? Why, you doen't mean to ask me 
that ! Stay with your uncle, Moppet ? When your husband that '11 be so 
soon, is here fur to take you home ? Now a person wouldn't think it, fur 
to see this little thing alongside a rough-weather chap like me," said Mr. 
Peggotty, looking round at both of us, with infinite pride ; " but the sea 
ain't more salt in it than she has fondness in her for her uncle — a foolish 
little Em'ly!" 

" Em'ly 's in the right in that, Mas'r Davy ! " said Ham. " Lookee 
here ! As Em'ly wishes of it, and as she 's hurried and frightened, like, 
besides, I '11 leave her till morning. Let me stay too ! " 

"No, no," said Mr. Peggotty. "You doen't ought — a married man 
like you — or what 's as good — to take and hull away a day's work. And 
you doen't ought to watch and work both. That won't do. You go 
home and turn in. You ain't afeerd of Em'ly not being took good care 
on, I know." 

Ham yielded to this persuasion, and took his hat to go. Even when he 
kissed her, — and I never saw him approach her, but I felt that nature had 
given him the soul of a gentleman, — she seemed to cling closer to her 
uncle, even to the avoidance of her chosen husband. I shut the door 
after him, that it might cause no disturbance of the quiet that prevailed ; 
and when I turned back, I found Mr. Peggotty still talking to her. 



! !fl 




^ 



^ 



v \ WW 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 313 

" Now, I 'm a going up-stairs to tell your aunt as Mas'r Davy 's here, 
and that '11 cheer her up a bit," he said. " Sit ye down by the fire, the 
while, my dear, and warm these mortal cold hands. You doen't need to 
be so fearsome, and take on so much. What ? You '11 go along with me? 
— Well ! come along with me — come ! If her uncle was turned out of 
house and home, and forced to lay down in a dyke, Mas'r Davy," said 
Mr. Peggotty, with no less pride than before, "it's my belief she 'd go 
along with him, now ! But there '11 be some one else, soon, — some one 
else, soon, Em'ly ! " 

Afterwards, when I went up-stairs, as I passed the door of my little 
chamber, which was dark, I had an indistinct impression of her being 
within it, cast down upon the floor. But, whether it was really she, or 
whether it was a confusion of the shadows in the room, I don't know now. 

I had leisure to think, before the kitchen-fire, of pretty little Em'ly's 
dread of death — which, added to what Mr. Oraer had told me, I took to 
be the cause of her being so unlike herself — and I had leisure, before 
Peggotty came down, even to think more leniently of the weakness of it : 
as I sat counting the ticking of the clock, and deepening my sense of the 
solemn hush around me. Peggotty took me in her arms, and blessed and 
thanked me over and over again for being such a comfort to her (that was 
what she said) in her distress. She then entreated me to come up-stairs, 
sobbing that Mr. Barkis had always liked me and admired me ; that he 
had often talked of me, before he fell into a stupor ; and that she believed, 
in case of his coming to himself again, he would brighten up at sight of 
me, if he could brighten up at any earthly thing. 

The probability of his ever doing so, appeared to me, when I saw him, 
to be very small. He was lying with his head and shoulders out of bed, 
in an uncomfortable attitude, half resting on the box which had cost him 
so much pain and trouble. I learned, that, when he was past creeping out 
of bed to open it, and past assuring himself of its safety by means of the 
divining rod I had seen him use, he had required to have it placed on the 
chair at the bed-side, where he had ever since embraced it, night and day. 
His arm lay on it now. Time and the world were slipping from beneath 
him, but the box was there ; and the last words he had uttered were (in 
an explanatory tone) " Old clothes ! " 

" Barkis, my dear ! " said Peggotty, almost cheerfully : bending over 
him, while her brother and I stood at the bed's foot. " Here's my dear 
boy — my dear boy, Master Davy, who brought us together, Barkis ! That 
you sent messages by, you know ! Won't you speak to Master Davy ? " 

He was as mute and senseless as the box, from which his form derived 
the only expression it had. 

" He 's a going out with the tide," said Mr. Peggotty to me, behind 
his hand. 

My eyes were dim, and so were Mr. Peggotty's ; but I repeated in a 
whisper, " With the tide ? " 

" People can't die, along the coast," said Mr. Peggotty, " except when 
the tide 's pretty nigh out. They can't be born, unless it 's pretty nigh in — 
not properly born, till flood. He 's a going out with the tide. It 's ebb at 
half arter three, slack water half-an-hour. If he lives 'till it turns, he '11 
hold his own till past the flood, and go out with the next tide." 



314 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

We remained there, watching him, a long time — hours. What mysteri- 
ous influence my presence had upon him in that state of his senses, I shall 
not pretend to say ; but when he at last began to wander feebly, it is 
certain he was muttering about driving me to school. 

" He 's coming to himself," said Peggotty. 

Mr. Peggotty touched me, and whispered with much awe and reverence, 
* They are both a going out fast." 

" Barkis, my dear ! " said Peggotty. 

" C. P. Barkis," he cried, faintly. " No better woman anywhere !" 

■* Look ! Here 's Master Davy ! " said Peggotty. Por he now opened 
his eyes. 

I was on the point of asking him if he knew me, when he tried to 
stretch out his arm, and said to me, distinctly, with a pleasant smile : 

" Barkis is willin' ! " 

And, it being low water, he went out with the tide. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

A GREATER LOSS. 



It was not difficult for me, on Peggotty's solicitation, to resolve to stay 
where I was, until after the remains of the poor carrier should have made 
their last journey to Blunderstone. She had long ago bought, out of her 
own savings, a little piece of ground in our old churchyard near the grave 
"of her sweet girl," as she always called my mother; and there they were 
to rest. 

In keeping Peggotty company, alid doing all I could for her (little 
enough at the utmost), I was as grateful, I rejoice to think, as even now 1 
could wish myself to have been. But I am afraid I had a supreme 
satisfaction, of a personal and professional nature, in taking charge of 
Mr. Barkis's will, and expounding its contents. 

I may claim the merit of having originated the suggestion that the will 
should be looked for in the box. After some search, it was found in the 
box, at the bottom of a horse's nose-bag ; wherein (besides hay) there was 
discovered an old gold watch, with chain and seals, which Mr. Barkis had 
worn on his wedding-day, and which had never been seen before or since ; 
a silver tobacco-stopper, in the form of a leg ; an imitation lemon, full of 
minute cups and saucers, which I have some idea Mr. Barkis must have 
purchased to present to me when I was a child, and afterwards found 
himself unable to part with ; eighty-seven guineas and a half, in guineas 
and half guineas ; two hundred and ten pounds, in perfectly clean Bank 
notes ; certain receipts for Bank of England stock ; an old horse-shoe, a 
bad shilling, a piece of camphor, and an oyster-shell. Prom the circum- 
stance of the latter article having been much polished, and displaying 
prismatic colours on the inside, I conclude that Mr. Barkis had some 



OF DAVID COPPEPJFIELD. 315 

general ideas about pearls, which never resolved themselves into anything 
definite. 

For years and years, Mr. Barkis had carried this box, on all his journeys, 
every day. That it might the better escape notice, he had invented a 
fiction that it belonged to " Mr. Blackboy," and was " to be left with 
Barkis till called for f a fable he had elaborately written on the lid, in 
characters now scarcely legible. 

He had hoarded, all these years, I found, to good purpose. His property 
in money amounted to nearly three thousand pounds. Of this he be- 
queathed the interest of one thousand to Mr. Peggotty for his life ; on his 
decease, the principal to be equally divided between Peggotty, little Emily, 
and me, or the survivor or survivors of us, share and share alike. All 
the rest he died possessed of, he bequeathed to Peggotty ; whom he left 
residuary legatee, and sole executrix of that his last will and testament. 

I felt myself quite a proctor when I read this document aloud with all 
possible ceremony, and set forth its provisions, any number of times, to 
those whom they concerned. I began to think there was more in the 
Commons than I had supposed. I examined the will with the deepest 
attention, pronounced it perfectly formal in all respects, made a pencil- 
mark or so in the margin, and thought it rather extraordinary that I knew 
so much. 

In this abstruse pursuit ; in making an account for, Peggotty, of all the 
property into which she had come; in arranging all the affairs in an 
orderly manner ; and in being her referee and adviser on every point, to 
our joint delight ; I passed the week before the funeral. I did not see 
little Emily in that interval, but they told me she was to be quietly married 
in a fortnight. 

I did not attend the funeral in character, if I may venture to say so. 
I mean I was not dressed up in a black cloak and a streamer, to frighten 
the birds ; but I walked over to Blunderstone early in the morning, 
and was in the churchyard when it came, attended only by Peggotty and 
her brother. The mad gentleman looked on, out of my little window ; 
Mr. Chillip's baby wagged its heavy head, and rolled its goggle eyes, at 
the clergyman, over its nurse's shoulder ; Mr. Omer breathed short in the 
background ; no one else was there ; and it was very quiet. We walked 
about the churchyard for an hour, after all was over ; and pulled some 
young leaves from the tree above my mother's grave. 

A dread falls on me here. A cloud is lowering on the distant town, 
towards which I retraced my solitary steps. I fear to approach it. I cannot 
bear to think of what did come, upon that memorable night ; of what must 
come again, if I go on. 

It is no worse, because I write of it. It would be no better, if I stopped 
my most unwilling hand. It is done. Nothing can undo it ; nothing can 
make it otherwise than as it was. 

My old nurse was to go to London with me next day, on the business 
of the will. Little Emily was passing that day at Mr. Omer's. We were 
all to meet in the old boathouse that night. Ham would bring Emily at 
the usual hour. I would walk back at my leisure. The brother and sister 
would return as they had come, and be expecting us, when the day closed 
in, at the fireside. 



316 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

I parted from them at the wicket-gate, where visionary Straps had 
rested with Eoderick Eandom's knapsack in the days of yore ; and, instead of 
going straight back, walked a little distance on the road to Lowestoft. Then 
I turned, and walked back towards Yarmouth. I stayed to dine at a decent 
alehouse, some mile or two from the Ferry I have mentioned before ; and 
thus the day wore aAvay, and it was evening when I reached it. Eain was 
falling heavily by that time, and it was a wild night ; but there was a moon 
behind the clouds, and it was not dark. 

I was soon within sight of Mr. Peggotty's house, and of the light 
within it shining through the window. A little floundering across the 
sand, which was heavy, brought me to the door, and I went in. 

It looked very comfortable, indeed. Mr. Peggotty had smoked his 
evening pipe, and there were preparations for some supper by-and-by. 
The fire was bright, the ashes were thrown up, the locker was ready for 
little Emily in her old place. In her own old place sat Peggotty, once 
more, looking (but for her dress) as if she had never left it. She had fallen 
back, already, on the society of the work-box with Saint Paul's upon the 
lid, the yard-measure in the cottage, and the bit of wax candle : and there 
they all were, just as if they had never been disturbed. Mrs. Gummidge 
appeared to be fretting a little, in her old corner ; and consequently looked 
quite natural, too. 

" You're first of the lot, Mas'r Davy!" said Mr. Peggotty, with a 
happy face. " Doen't keep in that coat, sir, if it 's wet." 

" Thank you, Mr. Peggotty," said I, giving him my outer coat to hang 
up. " It's quite dry." 

"So 'tis!" said Mr. Peggotty, feeling my shoulders. "As a chip! 
Sit ye down, sir. It ain't o' no use saying welcome to you, but you're 
welcome, kind and hearty." 

" Thank you, Mr. Peggotty, I am sure of that. Well, Peggotty! " said 
I, giving her a kiss. " And how are you, old woman?" 

" Ha, ha ! " laughed Mr. Peggotty, sitting down beside us, and rubbing 
his hands in his sense of relief from recent trouble, and in the genuine 
heartiness of his nature ; " there's not a woman in the wureld, sir — as 
I tell her — that need to feel more easy in her mind than her ! She done 
her dooty by the departed, and the departed know'd it ; and the departed 
done what was right by her, as she done what was right by the departed ; 
and — and — and it 's all right ! " 

Mrs. Gummidge groaned. 

" Cheer up, my pretty mawther ! " said Mr. Peggotty. (But he shook his 
head aside at us, evidently sensible of the tendency of the late occurrences 
to recal the memory of the old one.) " Doen't be down ! Cheer up, for 
your own self, on'y a little bit, and see if a good deal more doen't come 
nat'ral!" 

" Not to me, Dan'l," returned Mrs. Gummidge. " Nothink's nat'ral to 
me but to be lone and lorn." 

" No, no," said Mr. Peggotty, soothing her sorrows. 

" Yes, yes, Dan'l ! " said Mrs. Gummidge. " I ain't a person to live 
with them as has had money left. Thinks go too contrairy with me. I 
had better be a riddance." 



OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 317 

" Why, how should I ever spend it without you ? " said Mr. Peggotty, 
with an air of serious remonstrance. "What are you a talking on? 
Doen't I want you more now, than ever I did ? " 

" I know'd I was never wanted before ! " cried Mrs. Gummidge, with a 
pitiable whimper, " and now I 'm told so ! How could I expect to be 
wanted, being so lone and lorn, and so contrairy ! " 

Mr. Peggotty seemed very much shocked at himself for having made a 
speech capable of this unfeeling construction, but was prevented from 
replying, by Peggotty's pulling his sleeve, and shaking her head. After 
looking at Mrs. Gummidge for some moments, in sore distress of mind, 
he glanced at the Dutch clock, rose, snuffed the candle, and put it in the 
window. 

" Theer ! " said Mr. Peggotty, cheerily. " Theer we are, Missis Gum- 
midge ! " Mrs. Gummidge slightly groaned. " Lighted up, accordin' to 
custom ! You 're a wonderin' what that 's fur, sir ! Well, it 's fur our 
little Em'ly. You see, the path ain't over light or cheerful arter dark ; 
and when I 'm here at the hour as she 's a comin' home, I puts the light in 
the winder. That, you see," said Mr. Peggotty, bending over me with 
great glee, " meets two objects. She says, says Em'ly, ' Theer 's home ! ' 
she says. And likewise, says Em'ly, c My uncle 's theer ! ' Eur if I ain't 
theer, I never have no light showed." 

"You're a baby!" said Peggotty; very fond of him for it, if she 
thought so. 

" Well," returned Mr. Peggotty, standing with his legs pretty wide 
apart, and rubbing his hands up and down them in his comfortable satis- 
faction, as he looked alternately at us and at the fire, " I doen't know but 
I am. Not, you see, to look at." 

" Not azackly," observed Peggotty. 

"No," laughed Mr. Peggotty, "not to look at, but to — to consider on, 
you know. I doen't care, bless you ! Now I tell you. When I go a looking 
and looking about that theer pritty house of our Em'ly's, I 'm — I 'm 
Gormed," said Mr. Peggotty, with sudden emphasis — " theer ! I can't say 
more — if I doen't feel as if the littlest things was her, a'most. I takes 'em up 
and I puts 'em down, and I touches of 'em as delicate as if they was our 
Em'ly. So 'tis with her little bonnets and that. I couldn't see one on 
'em rough used a purpose — not fur the whole wureld. There 's a babby 
fur you, in the form of a great Sea Porkypine ! " said Mr. Peggotty, 
relieving his earnestness with a roar of laughter. 

Peggotty and I both laughed, but not so loud. 

" It 's my opinion, you see," said Mr. Peggotty, with a delighted face, 
after some further rubbing of his legs, " as this is along of my havin' 
played with her so much, and made believe as we was Turks, and French, 
and sharks, and every wariety of forinners — bless you, yes ; and lions and 
whales, and I don't know what all ! — when she warn't no higher than my 
knee. I 've got into the way on it, you know. Why, this here candle, 
now ! " said Mr. Peggotty, gleefully holding out his hand towards it, " i" 
know wery well that arter she 's married and gone, I shall put that candle 
theer, just the same as now. I know wery well that when ] 'm here o' 
nights (and where else should / live, bless your arts, whatever fortun' I 



318 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

come into !) and she ain't here, or I ain't theer, I shall put the candle in 
the winder, and sit afore the fire, pretending I 'm expecting of her, like I 'in 
a doing now. There 's a babby for you," said Mr. Peggotty, with another 
roar, "in the form of a Sea Porkypine! Why, at the present minute, 
when I see the candle sparkle up, I says to myself, ' She 's a looking at it ! 
Em'ly 's a coming ! ' There 's a babby for you, in the form of a Sea 
Porkypine ! Eight for all that," said Mr. Peggotty, stopping in his roar, 
and smiting his hands together ; " far here she is ! " 

It was only Ham. The night should have turned more wet since I 
came in, for he had a large sou'wester hat on, slouched over his face. 

" Where 's Em'ly? " said Mr. Peggotty. 

Ham made a motion with his head, as if she were outside. Mr. Peggotty 
took the light from the window, trimmed it, put it on the table, and was 
busily stirring the fire, when Plam, who had not moved, said : 

" Mas'r Davy, will you come out a minute, and see what Em'ly and me 
has got to show you? " 

We went out. As I passed him at the door, I saw, to my astonishment 
and fright, that he was deadly pale. He pushed me hastily into the open 
ah', and closed the door upon us. Only upon us two. 

" Ham ! what 's the matter ! " 

" Mas'r Davy ! — " Oh, for his broken heart, how dreadfully he wept ! 

I was paralyzed by the sight of such grief. I don't know what I 
thought, or what I dreaded. I could only look at him. 

" Ham ! Poor good fellow ! Eor Heaven's sake tell me what's the 
matter ! " 

" My love, Mas'r Davy — the pride and hope of my art — her that I 'd 
have died for, and would die for now — she 's gone ! " 

"Gone?" 

" Em'ly 's run away ! Oh, Mas'r Davy, think how she's run away, when 
I pray my good and gracious God to kill her (her that is so dear above all 
things) sooner than let her come to ruin and disgrace ! " 

The face he turned up to the troubled sky, the quivering of his clasped 
hands, the agony of his figure, remain associated with that lonely waste, in 
my remembrance, to this hour. It is always night there, and he is the 
only object in the scene. 

"You 're a scholar," he said, hurriedly, " and know what 's right and 
best. What am I to say, in-doors ? How am I ever to break it to him, 
Mas'r Davy?" 

I saw the door move, and instinctively tried to hold the latch on the 
outside, to gain a moment's time. It was too late. Mr. Peggotty thrust 
forth his face ; and never could I forget the change that came upon it 
when he saw us, if I were to live five hundred years. 

I remember a great wail and cry, and the women hanging about him, 
and we all standing in the room ; I with a paper in my hand, which Ham 
had given me ; Mr. Peggotty, with his vest torn open, his hair wild, his 
face and lips quite white, and blood trickling down his bosom (it had 
sprung from his mouth, I think), looking fixedly at me. 

" Bead it, sir," he said, in a low shivering voice. " Slow, please. I 
doen't know as I can understand." 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 319 

In the midst of the silence of death, I read thus, from a blotted letter. 

" ' When you, who love me so much better than I ever have deserved, even 
when my mind was innocent, see this, I shall he far away.' " 

" I shall be fur away," he repeated slowly. " Stop ! EmTy fur away. 

Well ! " 

< When I leave my dear home — my dear home — oh, my dear home ! — in the 
morning,' 

the letter bore date on the previous night : 

c — it will be never to come back, unless he brings me back a lady. This will 
be found at night, many hours after, instead of me. Oh, if you knew how my 
heart is torn. If even you, that I have wronged so much, that never can forgive 
me, could only know what I suffer ! I am too wicked to write about myself. 
Oh, take comfort in thinking that I am so bad. Oh, for mercy's sake, tell uncle 
that I never loved him half so dear as now. Oh, don't remember how affectionate 
and kind you have all been to me — don't remember we were ever to be married 
— but try to think as if I died when I was little, and was buried somewhere. Pray 
Heaven that I am going away from, have compassion on my uncle ! Tell him 
that I never loved him half so dear. Be his comfort. Love some good girl, that 
will be what I was once to uncle, and be true to you, and worthy of you, and know 
no shame but me. God bless all ! I '11 pray for all, often, on my knees. If he 
don't bring me back a lady, and I don't pray for my own self, I '11 pray for all. 
My parting love to uncle. My last tears, and my last thanks, ibr uncle ! ' " 

That was all. 

He stood, long after I had ceased to read, still looking at me. At 
length I ventured to take his hand, and to entreat him, as well as I could, 
to endeavour to get some command of himself. He replied, " I thankee, 
sir, I thankee ! " without moving. 

Ham spoke to him. Mr. Peggotty was so far sensible of his affliction, 
that he wrung his hand ; but, otherwise, he remained in the same state, 
and no one dared to disturb him. 

Slowly, at last, he moved his eyes from my face, as if he were waking 
from a vision, and cast them round the room. Then he said, in a low- 
voice : 

" Who 's the man? I want to know his name." 

Ham glanced at me, and suddenly I felt a shock that struck me back. 

" There 's a man suspected," said Mr. Peggotty. " Who is it ? " 

" Mas'r Davy ! " implored Ham. " Go out a bit, and let me tell him 
what I must. You doen't ought to hear it, sir." 

I felt the shock again. I sank down in a chair, and tried to utter some 
reply ; but my tongue was fettered, and my sight was weak. 

" I want to know his name ! " I heard said, once more. 

" Por some time past," Ham faltered, " there 's been a servant about 
here, at odd times. There 's been a gen'lm'n too. Both of 'em belonged 
to one another." 

Mr. Peggotty stood fixed as before, but now looking at him. 

"The servant," pursued Plain, "was seen along with — our poor girl — 
last night. He 's been in hiding about here, this week or over. He was 



320 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

thought to have gone, but he was hiding. Doen't stay, Mas'r Daw, 
doen't ! " 

I felt Peggotty's arm round my neck, but I could not have moved if the 
house had been about to fall upon me. 

" A strange chay and horses was outside town, this morning, on the 
Norwich road, a'most afore the day broke," Ham went on. " The 
servant went to it, and come from it, and went to it again. When he 
went to it again, Em'ly was nigh him. The t'other was inside. He 's 
the man." 

"For the Lord's love," said Mr. Peggotty, falling back, and putting out 
his hand, as if to keep off what he dreaded. " Doen't tell me his name 's 
Steerforth! " 

" Mas'r Davy," exclaimed Ham, in a broken voice, "it ain't no fault of 
yourn— and lam far from laying of it to you — but his name is Steerforth, 
and he 's a damned villain ! " 

Mr. Peggotty uttered no cry, and shed no tear, and moved no more, 
until he seemed to wake again, all at once, and pulled down his rough 
coat from its peg in a corner. 

" Bear a hand with this ! I 'm struck of a heap, and can't do it," he 
said, impatiently. " Bear a hand, and help me. Well ! " when somebody 
had done so. " Now give me that theer hat ! " 

Ham asked him whither he was going. 

" I 'm a going to seek my niece. I 'm a going to seek my Em'ly. 
I 'm a going, first, to stave in that theer boat, and sink it where I would 
have drownded hint, as I 'm a livin' soul, if I had had one thought of 
what was in him ! As he sat afore me," he said, wildly, holding out his 
clenched right hand, "as he sat afore me, face to face, strike me down 
dead, but I 'd have drownded him, and thought it right ! — I 'm a going to 
seek my niece." 

" Where ? " cried Ham, interposing himself before the door. 

" Anywhere ! I'ma going to seek my niece through the wureld. I 'm 
a going to find my poor niece in her shame, and bring her back. No one 
stop me ! I tell you I 'm a going to seek my niece ! " 

" No, no ! " cried Mrs. Gummidge, coming between them, in a fit of 
crying. " No, no, Dan'l, not as you are now. Seek her in a little while, 
my lone lorn Dan'l, and that '11 be but right ; but not as you are now. 
Sit ye down, and give me your forgiveness for having ever been a worrit 
to you, Dan'l — what have my contrairies ever been to this ! — and let us 
speak a word about them times when she was first an orphan, and when 
Ham was too, and when I was a poor widder woman, and you took me in. 
It '11 soften your poor heart, Dan'l," laying her head upon his shoulder, 
" and you '11 bear your sorrow better ; for you know the promise, Dan'l, 
1 As you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto 
me ' ; and that can never fail under this roof, that 's been our shelter for 
so many, many year ! " 

He was quite passive now ; and when I heard him crying, the impulse 
that had been upon me to go down upon my knees, and ask their pardon 
for the desolation I had caused, and curse Steerforth, yielded to a better 
feeling. My overcharged heart found the same relief, and I cried too. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 321 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

THE BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY. 

What is natural in me, is natural in many other men, I infer, and so 
I am not afraid to write that I never had loved Steerforth better than 
when the ties that bound me to him were broken. In the keen distress of 
the discovery of his unworthiness, I thought more of all that was brilliant 
in him, I softened more towards all that was good in him, I did more 
justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a noble nature 
and a great name, than ever I had done in the height of my devotion to 
him. Deeply as I felt my own unconscious part in his pollution of 
an honest home, I believe that if I had been brought face to face with him, 
I could not have uttered one reproach. I should have loved him so well 
still — though he fascinated me no longer — I should have held in so much 
tenderness the memory of my affection for him, that I think I should 
have been as weak as a spirit-wounded child, in all but the entertainment 
of a thought that we could ever be re-united. That thought I never had. 
I felt, as he had felt, that all was at an end between us. What his 
remembrances of me were, I have never known — they were light enough, 
perhaps, and easily dismissed — but mine of him were as the remem- 
brances of a cherished friend, who was dead. 

Yes, Steerforth, long removed from the scenes of this poor history ! My 
sorrow may bear involuntary witness against you at the Judgment Throne; 
but my angry thoughts or my reproaches never will, I know ! 

The news of what had happened soon spread' through the town ; inso- 
much that as I passed along the streets next morning, I overheard the 
people speaking of it at their doors. Many were hard upon her, some 
few were hard upon him, but towards her second father and her lover there 
was but one sentiment. Among all kinds of people a respect for them in 
their distress prevailed, which was full of gentleness and delicacy. The 
seafaring men kept apart, when those two were seen early, walking with 
slow steps on the beach; and stood in knots, talking compassionately 
among themselves. 

It was on the beach, close down by the sea, that I found them. It 
would have been easy to perceive that they had not slept all last night, even 
if Peggotty had failed to tell me of their still sitting just as I left them, 
when it was broad day. They looked worn; and I thought Mr. Peggotty's 
head was bow T ed in one night more than in all the years I had known 
him. But they were both as grave and steady as the sea itself: then 
lying beneath a dark sky, waveless — yet with a heavy roll upon it, as if 
it breathed in its rest — and touched, on the horizon, with a strip of silvery 
light from the unseen sun. 

" We have had a mort of talk, sir," said Mr. Peggotty to me, when we 

y 



322 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

had all three walked a little while in silence, " of what we ought and. 
doen't ought to do. But we see our course now." 

I happened to glance at Ham, then looking out to sea upon the distant 
light, and a frightful thought came into my mind — not that his face was 
angry, for it was not; I recal nothing but an expression of stern 
determination in it — that if ever he encountered Steerforth, he would 
kill him. 

" My dooty here, sir," said Mr. Peggotty, " is done. I 'm a going to 
seek my — " he stopped, and went on in a firmer voice : " I'm a going to 
seek her. That 's my dooty evermore." 

He shook his head when I asked him where he would seek her, and 
inquired if I were going to London to-morrow ? I told him I had not 
gone to-day, fearing to lose the chance of being of any service to him ; but 
that I was ready to go when he would. 

"I'll go along with you, sir," he rejoined, " if you're agreeable, 
to-morrow." 

We walked again, for a while, in silence. 

" Ham," he presently resumed, " he '11 hold to his present work, and go 
and live along with my sister. The old boat yonder — " 

" Will you desert the old boat, Mr. Peggotty? " I gently interposed. 

" My station, Mas'r Davy," he returned, " ain't there no longer ; and if 
ever a boat foundered, since there was darkness on the face of the deep, 
that one 's gone down. But no, sir, no ; I doen't mean as it should be 
deserted. Pur from that." 

We walked again for a while, as before, until he explained : 

" My wishes is, sir, as it shall look, day and night, winter and summer, 
as it has always looked, since she first know'd it. If ever she should 
come a wandering back, I wouldn't have the old place seem to cast her otf, 
you understand, but seem to tempt her to draw nigher to 't, and to peep 
in, maybe, like a ghost, out of the wind and rain, through the old winder, 
at the old seat by the fire. Then, maybe, Mas'r Davy, seein' none but 
Missis Gummidge there, she might take heart to creep in, trembling ; and 
might come to be laid down in her old bed, and rest her weary head where 
it was once so gay." 

I could not speak to him in reply, though I tried. 

" Every night," said Mr. Peggotty, " as reg'lar as the night comes, the 
candle must be stood in its old pane of glass, that if ever she should see 
it, it may seem to say ' Come back, my child, come back ! * If ever 
there 's a knock, Ham (partic'ler a soft knock), arter dark, at your aunt's 
door, doen't you go nigh it. Let it be her — not you — that sees my 
fallen child ! " 

He walked a little in front of us, and kept before us for some minutes. 
During this interval, I glanced at Ham again, and observing the same 
expression on his face, and his eyes still directed to the distant light, I 
touched his arm. 

Twice I called him by his name, in the tone in which I might have 
tried to rouse a sleeper, before he heeded me. When I at last inquired 
on what his thoughts were so bent, he replied : 

" On what 's afore me, Mas'r Davy ; and over yon." 

" On the life before you, do you mean ? " He had pointed confusedly 
out to sea. 



OF DAVID COPPEMIELD. 323 

" Ay, Mas'r Davy. I doen't rightly know bow 'tis, but from over 
von there seemed to me to come — the end of it like;" looking at me as 
if he were waking, but with the same determined face. 

" What end? " I asked, possessed by my former fear. 

" I doen't know," he said thoughtfully ; " I was calling to mind that the 
beginning of it all did take place here — and then the end come. But it's 
gone! Mas'r Davy," he added; answering, as I think, my look; "you 
han't no call to be afeerd of me : but I 'm kiender muddled ; I doen't 
fare to feel no matters," — which was as much as to say that he was not 
himself, and quite confounded. 

Mr. Peggotty stopping for us to join him : we did so, and said no 
more. The remembrance of this, in connexion with my former thought, 
however, haunted me at intervals, even until the inexorable end came at 
its appointed time. 

"We insensibly approached the old boat, and entered. Mrs. Gummidge, 
no longer moping in her especial corner, was busy preparing breakfast. 
She took Mr. Peggotty's hat, and placed his seat for him, and spoke so 
comfortably and softly, that I hardly knew her. 

"Dan'l, my good man," said she, "you must eat and drink, and keep 
up your strength, for without it you '11 do nowt. Try, that 's a dear soul ! 
And if I disturb you with my clicketten," she meant her chattering, " tell 
me so, Dan'l, and I won't." 

When she had served us all, she withdrew to the window, where she 
sedulously employed herself in repairing some shirts and other clothes 
belonging to Mr. Peggotty, and neatly folding and packing them in an old 
oilskin bag, such as sailors carry. Meanwhile, she continued talking, in 
the same quiet manner : 

" All times and seasons, you know, Dan'l," said Mrs. Gummidge, " I 
shall be alius here, and every think will look accordin' to your' wishes. 
I 'm a poor scholar, but I shall write to you, odd times, when you 're away, 
and send my letters to Mas'r Davy. Maybe you '11 write to me too, 
Dan'l, odd times, and tell me how you fare to feel upon your lone lorn 
journies." 

" You '11 be a solitary woman heer, I 'm afeerd ! " said Mr. Peggotty. 

" No, no, Dan'l," she returned, " I shan't be that. Doen't you mind 
me. I shall have enough to do to keep a Beein for you" (Mrs. Gum- 
midge meant a home), " again you come back — to keep a Beein here for 
any that may hap to come back, Dan'l. In the fine time, I shall set out- 
side the door as I used to do. If any should come nigh, they shall see 
the old widder woman true to 'em, a long way off." 

What a change in Mrs. Gummidge in a little time ! She was another 
woman. She was so devoted, she had such a quick perception of 
what it would be well to say, and what it would be well to leave unsaid, 
she was so forgetful of herself, and so regardful of the sorrow about 
her, that I held her in a sort of veneration. The work she did that 
day ! There were many things to be brought up from the beach 
and stored in the outhouse — as oars, nets, sails, cordage, spars, lobster- 
pots, bags of ballast, and the like ; and though there was abundance of 
assistance rendered, there being not a pair of working hands on all that 
shore but would have labored hard for Mr. Peggotty, and been well paid 

Y 2 



324 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

in being asked to do it, yet she persisted, all day long, in toiling under 
weights that she was quite unequal to, and fagging to and fro on all sorts 
of unnecessary errands. As to deploring her misfortunes, she appeared to 
have entirely lost the recollection of ever having had any. She preserved 
an equable cheerfulness in the midst of her sympathy, which was not the 
least astonishing part of the change that had come over her. Querulous- 
ness was out of the question. I did not even observe her voice to 
falter, or a tear to escape from her eyes, the whole day through, until 
twilight ; when she and I and Mr. Peggotty being alone together, and 
he having fallen asleep in perfect exhaustion, she broke into a half-sup- 
pressed fit of sobbing and crying, and taking me to the door, said, 
" Ever bless you, Mas'r Davy, be a friend to him, poor dear ! " Then, she 
immediately ran out of the house to wash her face, in order that she might 
sit quietly beside him, and be found at work there, when he should awake. 
In short I left her, when I went away at night, the prop and staff of 
Mr. Peggotty's affliction; and I could not meditate enough upon the 
lesson that I read in Mrs. Gummidge, and the new experience she un- 
folded to me. 

It was between nine and ten o'clock when, strolling in a melancholy 
manner through the town, I stopped at Mr. Omer's door. Mr. Omer 
had taken it so much to heart, his daughter told me, that he had been 
very low and poorly all day, and had gone to bed without his pipe. 

"A deceitful, bad-hearted girl," said Mrs. Joram. "There was no 
good in her, ever ! " 

" Don't say so," I returned. " You don't think so." 

" Yes, I do ! " cried Mrs. Joram, angrily. 

" No, no," said I. 

Mrs. Joram tossed her head, endeavouring to be very stern and 
cross ; but she could not command her softer self, and began to cry. 
I was young, to be sure; but I thought much the better of her for this 
sympathy, and fancied it became her, as a virtuous wife and mother, very 
well indeed. 

" What will she ever do ! " sobbed Minnie. " Where will she go ! 
What will become of her ! Oh, how could she be so cruel, to herself 
and him ! " 

I remembered the time when Minnie was a young and pretty girl; and 
I was glad that she remembered it too, so feelingly. 

" My little Minnie," said Mrs. Joram, "has only just now been got to 
sleep. Even in her sleep she is sobbing for Em'ly. All day long, little 
Minnie has cried for her, and asked me, over and over again, whether Em'ly 
was wicked ? What can I say to her, when Em'ly tied a ribbon off her 
own neck round little Minnie's the last night she was here, and laid her 
head down on the pillow beside her till she was fast asleep ! The ribbon 's 
round my little Minnie's neck now. It ought not to be, perhaps, but what 
can I do ? Em'ly is very bad, but they were fond of one another. And 
the child knows nothing ! " 

Mrs. Joram was so unhappy, that her husband came out to take care 
of her. Leaving them together, I went home to Peggotty's ; more melan- 
choly myself, if possible, than I had been yet. 

That good creature — I mean Peggotty — all untired by her late anxieties 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 325 

and sleepless nights, was at her brother's, where she meant to stay till 
morning. An old woman, who had been employed about the house for 
some weeks past, while Peggotty had been unable to attend to it, was 
the house's only other occupant besides myself. As I had no occasion 
for her services, I sent her to bed, by no means against her will ; 
and sat down before the kitchen fire a little while, to think about 
all this. 

I was blending it with the deathbed of the late Mr. Barkis, and was 
driving out with the tide towards the distance at which Ham had looked 
so singularly in the morning, when I was recalled from my wanderings by 
a knock at the door. There was a knocker upon the door, but it was not 
that which made the sound. The tap was from a hand, and low down 
upon the door, as if it were given by a child. 

It made me start as much as if it had been the knock of a footman to 
a person of distinction. I opened the door; and at first looked down, to 
my amazement, on nothing but a great umbrella that appeared to be 
walking about of itself. But presently I discovered underneath it, Miss 
Mowcher. 

I might not have been prepared to give the little creature a very kind 
reception, if, on her removing the umbrella, which her utmost efforts were 
unable to shut up, she had shown me the " volatile " expression of face 
which had made so great an impression on me at our first and last meeting. 
But her face, as she turned it up to mine, was so earnest ; and when I 
relieved her of the umbrella (which would have been an inconvenient one 
for the Irish Giant), she wrung her little hands in such an afflicted manner ; 
that I rather inclined towards her. 

" Miss Mowcher !" said I, after glancing up and down the empty street, 
without distinctly knowing what I expected to see besides; "how do 
you come here ? What is the matter?" 

She motioned to me, with her short right arm, to shut the umbrella for 
her ; and passing me hurriedly, went into the kitchen. When I had closed 
the door, and followed, with the umbrella in my hand, I found her 
sitting on the corner of the fender — it was a low iron one, with two flat bars 
at top to stand plates upon — in the shadow of the boiler, swaying herself 
backwards and forwards, and chafing her hands upon her knees like a 
person in pain. 

Quite alarmed at being the only recipient of this untimely visit, and 
the only spectator of this portentous behaviour, I exclaimed again : 
" Pray tell me, Miss Mowcher, what is the matter ! are you ill ? 

" My dear young soul," returned Miss Mowcher, squeezing her hands 
upon her heart one over the other. " I am ill here, I am very ill. To 
think that it should come to this, when I might have known it and perhaps 
prevented it, if I hadn't been a thoughtless fool !" 

Again her large bonnet (very disproportionate to her figure) went 
backwards and forwards, in her swaying of her little body to and fro ; 
while a most gigantic bonnet rocked, in unison with it, upon the wall. 

" I am surprised," I began, " to see you so distressed and serious" — 
when she interrupted me. 

" Yes, it's always so !" she said. " They are all surprised, these 
inconsiderate young people, fairly and full grown, to see any natural 



326 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

feeling in a little thing like me ! They make a plaything of me, use me 
for their amusement, throw me away when they are tired, and wonder 
that I feel more than a toy horse or a wooden soldier ! Yes, yes, that 's 
the way. The old way ! " 

" It may be, with others," I returned, " but I do assure you it is not 
with me. Perhaps I ought not to be at all surprised to see you as you 
are now : I know so little of you. I said, without consideration, what I 
thought." 

" What can I do ? " returned the little woman, standing up, and 
holding out her arms to show herself. " See ! What I am, my father was ; 
and my sister is ; and my brother is. I have worked for sister and brother 
these many years — hard, Mr. Copperfield — all day. I must live. I do 
no harm. If there are people so unreflecting or so cruel, as to make 
a jest of me, what is left for me to do but to make a jest of myself, 
them, and every thing ? If I do so, for the time, whose fault is that ? 
Mine? " 

No. Not Miss Mowcher's, I perceived. 

" If I had shown myself a sensitive dwarf to your false friend," pursued 
the little woman, shaking her head at me, with reproachful earnestness, 
" how much of his help or good will do you think I" should ever have 
had? If little Mowcher (who had no hand, young gentleman, in the 
making of herself) addressed herself to him, or the like of him, because of 
her misfortunes, when do you suppose her small voice would have been 
heard ? Little Mowcher would have as much need to live, if she was the 
bitterest and dullest of pigmies ; but she couldn't do it. No. She might 
whistle for her bread and butter till she died of Air ! " 

Miss Mowcher sat down on the fender again, and took out her hand- 
kerchief, and wiped her eyes. 

" Be thankful for me, if you have a kind heart as I think you have," 
she said, " that while I know well what I am, I can be cheerful and endure 
it all. I am thankful for myself, at any rate, that I can find my tiny way 
through the world, without being beholden to any one ; and that in return 
for all that is thrown at me, in folly or vanity, as I go along, I can throw 
bubbles back. If I don't brood over all I want, it is the better for me, 
and not the worse for any one. If I am a plaything for you giants, be 
gentle with me. 

Miss Mowcher replaced her handkerchief in her pocket, looking at me 
with very intent expression all the while, and pursued : 

" I saw you in the street just now. You may suppose I am not able to 
walk as fast as you, with my short legs and short breath, and I couldn't 
overtake you; but I guessed where you came, and came after you. I 
have been here before, to-day, but the good woman wasn't at home." 

" Do you know her ? " I demanded. 

" I know of her, and about her," she replied, " from Omer and Joram. 
I was there at seven o'clock this morning. Do you remember what 
Steerforth said to me about this unfortunate girl, that time when I saw 
you both at the inn ? " 

The great bonnet on Miss Mowcher's head, and the greater bonnet on 
the wall, began to go backwards and forwards again when she asked this 
question. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 327 

I remembered very well what she referred to, having had it in my 
thoughts many times that day. I told her so. 

" May the Father of all Evil confound him," said the little woman, 
holding up her forefinger between me and her sparkling eyes, " and ten 
times more confound that wicked servant; but I believed it was you who 
had a boyish passion for her I " 

"I?" I repeated. 

" Child, child ! In the name of blind ill-fortune," cried Miss Mowcher, 
wringing her hands impatiently, as she went to and fro again upon the 
fender, " why did you praise her so, and blush, and look disturbed? " 

I could not conceal from myself that I had done this, though for a 
reason very different from her supposition. 

" What did I know? " said Miss Mowcher, taking out her handkerchief 
again, and giving one little stamp on the ground whenever, at short inter- 
vals, she applied it to her eyes with both hands at once. " He was crossing 
you and wheedling you, I saw ; and you were soft wax in his hands, I saw. 
Had I left the room a minute, when his man told me that ' Young Inno- 
cence ' (so he called you, and you may call him • Old Guilt ' all the days 
of your life) had set his heart upon her, and she was giddy and liked him, 
but his master was resolved that no harm should come of it — more for your 
sake than for hers — and that that was their business here ? How could I 
hut believe him ? I saw Steerforth soothe and please you by his praise of 
her ! You were the first to mention her name. You owned to an old 
admiration of her. You were hot and cold, and red and white, all at once 
when I spoke to you of her. What could I think — what did I think — 
but that you were a young libertine in everything but experience, and had 
fallen into hands that had experience enough, and could manage you 
(having the fancy) for your own good ? Oh ! oh ! oh ! They were afraid 
of my finding out the truth," exclaimed Miss Mowcher, getting off the 
fender, and trotting up and down the kitchen with her two short arms 
distressfully lifted up, " because lam a sharp little thing — I need be, to get 
through the world at all ! — and they deceived me altogether, and I gave 
the poor unfortunate girl a letter, which I fully believe was the beginning 
of her ever speaking to Littimer, who was left behind on purpose ! " 

I stood amazed at the revelation of all this perfidy, looking at Miss 
Mowcher as she walked up and down the kitchen until she was out of 
breath : when she sat upon the fender again, and, drying her face with her 
handkerchief, shook her head for a long time, without otherwise moving, 
and without breaking silence. 

" My country rounds," she added at length, " brought me to Norwich, 
Mr. Copperfield, the night before last. What I happened to find out there, 
about their secret way of coming and going, without you — which was 
strange — led to my suspecting something wrong. I got into the coach 
from London last night, as it came through Norwich, and was here this 
morning. Oh, oh, oh ! too late ! " 

Poor little Mowcher turned so chilly after all her crying and fretting, 
that she turned round on the fender, putting her poor little wet feet in 
among the ashes to warm them, and sat looking at the fire, like a large 
doll. I sat in a chair on the other side of the hearth, lost in unhappy 
reflections, and looking at the fire too, and sometimes at her. 



328 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" I must go," she said at last, rising as she spoke. " It *s late. You 
don't mistrust me?" 

Meeting her sharp glance, which was as sharp as ever when she asked 
me, I could not on that short challenge answer no, quite frankly. 

" Come ! " said she, accepting the offer of my hand to help her over the 
fender, and looking wistfully up into my face, " you know you wouldn't 
mistrust me, if I was a full-sized woman ! " 

I felt that there was much truth in this ; and I felt rather ashamed 
of myself. 

" You are a young man," she said, nodding. " Take a word of advice, 
even from three foot nothing. Try not to associate bodily defects with 
mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason." 

She had got over the fender now, and I had got over my suspicion. I 
told her that I believed she had given me a faithful account of herself, and 
that we had both been hapless instruments in designing hands. She 
thanked me, and said I was a good fellow. 

" Now, mind ! " she exclaimed, turning back on her way to the door, 
and looking shrewdly at me, with her forefinger up again. " I have 
some reason to suspect, from what I have heard — my ears are always 
open ; I can't afford to spare what powers I have — that they are gone 
abroad. But if ever they return, if ever any one of them returns, while I 
am alive, I am more likely than another, going about as I do, to find it 
out soon. "Whatever I know, you shall know. If ever I can do anything 
to serve the poor betrayed girl, I will do it faithfully, please Heaven ! 
And Littimer had better have a bloodhound at his back, than little 
Mowcher ! " 

I placed implicit faith in this last statement, when I marked the look 
with which it was accompanied. 

" Trust me no more, but trust me no less, than you would trust a full- 
sized woman," said the little creature, touching me appealingly on the 
wrist. " If ever you see me again, unlike what I am now, and like what 
I was when you first saw me, observe what company I am in. Call 
to mind that I am a very helpless and defenceless little thing. Think 
of me at home with my brother like myself and sister like myself, Avhen 
my day's work is done. Perhaps you wont, then, be very hard upon me, 
or surprised if I can be distressed and serious. Good night ! " 

I gave Miss Mowcher my hand, with a very different opinion of her from 
that which I had hitherto entertained, and opened the door to let her out. 
It was not a trifling business to get the great umbrella up, and properly 
balanced in her grasp ; but at last I successfully accomplished this, and saw 
it go bobbing down the street through the rain, without the least appear- 
ance of having anybody underneath it, except when a heavier fall than 
usual from some overcharged water-spout sent it toppling over, on one 
side, and discovered Miss Mowcher struggling violently to get it right. 
After making one or two sallies to her relief, which were rendered futile 
by the umbrella's hopping on again, like an immense bird, before I could 
reach it, I came in, went to bed, and slept till morning. 

In the morning I was joined by Mr. Peggotty and by my old nurse, and 
we went at an early hour to the coach office, where Mrs. Gummidge and 
Ham were waiting to take leave of us. 



OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 329 

" Mas'r Davy," Ham whispered, drawing nie aside, while Mr. Peggotty 
was stowing his bag among the luggage, " his life is quite broke up. He 
doen't know wheer he 's going ; he doen't know what 's afore him ; he 's 
bound upon a voyage that '11 last, on and off, all the rest of his days, 
take my wured for 't, unless he finds what he 's a seeking of. I am sure 
you'll be a friend to him, Mas'r Davy?" 

"Trust me, 1 will indeed," said I, shaking hands with Ham earnestly. 

"Thankee. Thankee, very kind, sir. One thing furder. I'm in 
good employ, you know, Mas'r Davy, and I han't no way now of spending 
what I gets. Money 's of no use to me no more, except to live. If you 
can lay it out for him, I shall do my work with a better art. Though as 
to that, sir," and he spoke very steadily and mildly, "you're not to 
think but I shall work at all times, like a man, and act the best that lays 
in my power ! " 

I told him I was well convinced of it ; and I hinted that I hoped 
the time might even come, when he would cease to lead the lonely life lie 
naturally contemplated now. 

" No sir," he said, shaking his head, " all that 's past and over witk 
me, sir. No one can never fill the place that 's empty. But you '11 bear 
in mind about the money, as theer's at all times some laying by for 
him?" 

Keminding him of the fact, that Mr. Peggotty derived a steady, though 
certainly a very moderate income from the bequest of his late brother-in- 
law, I promised to do so. We then took leave of each other. I cannot 
leave him, even now, without remembering with a pang, at once his modest 
fortitude and his great sorrow. 

As to Mrs. Gummidge, if I were to endeavour to describe how she ran 
down the street by the side of the coach, seeing nothing but Mr. Peggotty 
on the roof, through the tears she tried to repress, and dashing herself 
against the people who were coming in the opposite direction, I should 
enter on a task of some difficulty. Therefore I had better leave her 
sitting on a baker's door-step, out of breath, with no shape at all remaining 
in her bonnet, and one of her shoes off, lying on the pavement at a, 
considerable distance. 

When we got to our journey's end, our first pursuit was to look about 
for a little lodging for Peggotty, where her brother could have a bed. 
We were so fortunate as to find one, of a very clean and cheap description, 
over a chandler's shop, only two streets removed from me. When we had 
engaged this domicile, I bought some cold meat at an eating-house, and 
took my fellow-travellers home to tea ; a proceeding, I regret to state s 
which did not meet with Mrs. Crupp's approval, but quite the contrary. 
I ought to observe, however, in explanation of that lady's state of mind, 
that she was much offended by Peggotty's tucking up her widow's gown 
before she had been ten minutes in the place, and setting to work to dust 
my bed-room. This Mrs. Crupp regarded in the light of a liberty, and 
a liberty, she said, was a thing she never allowed. 

Mr. Peggotty had made a communication to me on the way to London, 
for which I was not unprepared. It was, that he purposed first seeing 
Mrs. Steerforth. As I felt bound to assist him in this, and also to 
mediate between them ; with the view of sparing the mother's feelings as 



330 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

much as possible, I wrote to her that night. I told her as mildly as I 
could what his wrong was, and what my own share in his injury. I said 
he was a man in very common life, but of a most gentle and upright 
character ; and that I ventured to express a hope that she would not 
refuse to see him in his heavy trouble. I mentioned two o'clock in the 
afternoon as the hour of our coming, and I sent the letter myself by the 
first coach in the morning. 

At the appointed time, we stood at the door — the door of that house 
where I had been, a few days since, so happy : where my youthful 
confidence and warmth of heart had been yielded up so freely : 
which was closed against me henceforth : which was now a waste, 
a ruin. 

No Littimer appeared. The pleasanter face which had replaced his, on 
the occasion of my last visit, answered to our summons, and went before 
us to the drawing-room. Mrs. Steerforth was sitting there. Eosa Dartle 
glided, as we went in, from another part of the room, and stood behind 
her chair. 

I saw, directly, in his mother's face, that she knew from himself what 
he had done. It was very pale ; and bore the traces of deeper emotion 
than my letter alone, weakened by the doubts her fondness would have 
raised upon it, would have been likely to create. I thought her more 
like him than ever I had thought her ; and I felt, rather than saw, that 
the resemblance was not lost on my companion. 

She sat upright in her arm-chair, with a stately, immoveable, passionless 
air, that it seemed as if nothing could disturb. She looked very stedfastly 
at Mr. Peggotty when he stood before her ; and he looked, quite as 
stedfastly, at her. Eosa Dartle's keen glance comprehended all of us. 
For some moments not a word was spoken. 

She motioned to Mr. Peggotty to be seated. He said, in a low voice, 
" I shouldn't feel it nat'ral, ma'am, to sit down in this house. I 'd sooner 
stand." And this was succeeded by another silence, which she broke 
thus : 

" I know, with deep regret, what has brought you here. What do 
you want of me ? What do you ask me to do ? " 

He put his hat under his arm, and feeling in his breast for Emily's 
letter, took it out, unfolded it, and gave it to her. 

" Please to read that, ma'am. That 's my niece's hand ! " 

She read it, in the same stately and impassive way, — untouched by its 
contents, as far as I could see, — and returned it to him. 

" ' Unless he brings me back a lady,' " said Mr. Peggotty, tracing out 
that part with his finger. " I come to know, ma'am, whether he will 
keep his wured ? " 

"No," she returned. 

" Why not ? " said Mr. Peggotty. 

" It is impossible. He would disgrace himself. You cannot fail to 
know that she is far below him." 

" Eaise her up ! " said Mr. Peggotty. 

" She is uneducated and ignorant." 

" Maybe she 's not ; maybe she is," said Mr. Peggotty. " 1 think 
not, ma'am ; but I 'm no judge of them things. Teach her better ! " 



'■&*%$&; M£ 







I 



i 



OP DAVID COPPERPIELD. 331 

' c Since you oblige me to speak more plainly, which I am very unwilling 
to do, her humble connexions would render such a thing impossible, if 
nothing else did." 

" Hark to this, ma'am," he returned, slowly and quietly. " You know 
what it is to love your child. So do I. If she was a hundred times my 
child, I couldn't love her more. You doen't know what it is to lose your 
child. I do. All the heaps of riches in the wureld would be nowt to me 
(if they was mine) to buy her back ! But, save her from this disgrace, 
and she shall never be disgraced by us. Not one of us that she 's growed 
up among, not one of us that 's lived along with her, and had her for 
their all in all, these many year, will ever look upon her pritty face again. 
We '11 be content to let her be ; we '11 be content to think of her, far off, 
as if she was underneath another sun and sky ; we '11 be content to trust 
her to her husband, — to her little children p'raps, — and bide the time 
when all of us shall be alike in quality afore our God ! " 

The rugged eloquence with which he spoke, was not devoid of all 
effect. She still preserved her proud manner, but there was a touch of 
softness in her voice, as she answered : 

" I justify nothing. I make no counter-accusations. But I am sorry to 
repeat, it is impossible. Such a marriage would irretrievably blight my 
son's career, and ruin his prospects. Nothing is more certain than 
that it never can take place, and never will. If there is any other 
compensation — " 

" I am looking at the likeness of the face," interrupted Mr. Peggotty, 
with a steady but a kindling eye, "that has looked at me, in my home, at 
my fireside, in my boat — wheer not ? — smiling and friendly, when it was 
so treacherous, that I go half wild when I think of it. If the likeness of 
that face don't turn to burning fire, at the thought of offering money to 
me for my child's blight and ruin, it 's as bad. I doen't know, being a 
lady's, but what it 's worse." 

She changed now, in a moment. An angry flush overspread her 
features ; and she said, in an intolerant manner, grasping the arm-chair 
tightly with her hands : 

" What compensation can you make to me for opening such a pit 
between me and my son? What is your love to mine ? What is your 
separation to ours ? " 

Miss Dartle softly touched her, and cent down her head to whisper, but 
she would not hear a word. 

" No, Eosa, not a word ! Let the man listen to what I say ! My son, 
who has been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has been 
devoted, whom I have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom I 
have had no separate existence since his birth, — to take up in a moment 
with a miserable girl, and avoid me ! To repay my confidence with sys- 
tematic deception, for her sake, and quit me for her ! To set this wretched 
fancy, against his mother's claims upon his duty, love, respect, gratitude — 
claims that every day and hour of his life should have strengthened into 
ties that nothing could be proof against ! Is this no injury? " 

Again Eosa Dartle tried to soothe her ; again ineffectually. 

" I say, Eosa, not a word ! If he can stake his all upon the lightest 
object, I can stake my all upon a greater purpose. Let him go where he 



332 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

will, with the means that my love has secured to him ! Does he think to 
reduce me by long absence ? He knows his mother very little if he does. 
Let him put away his whim now, and he is welcome back. Let him not 
put her away now, and he never shall come near me, living or dying, 
while I can raise my hand to make a sign against it, unless, being rid of 
her for ever, he comes humbly to me and begs for my forgiveness. This 
is my right. This is the acknowledgment I will have. This is the sepa- 
ration that there is between us ! And is this," she added, looking at her 
visitor with the proud intolerant air with which she had begun, " no 
injury ? " 

While I heard and saw the mother as she said these words, I seemed to 
hear and see the son, defying them. All that I had ever seen in him of 
an unyielding, wilful spirit, I saw in her. All the understanding that I 
had now of his misdirected energy, became an understanding of her 
character too, and a perception that it was, in its strongest springs, the 
same. 

She now observed to me, aloud, resuming her former restraint, that it 
was useless to hear more, or to say more, and that she begged to put an 
end to the interview. She rose with an air of dignity to leave the room, 
when Mr. Peggotty signified that it was needless. 

" Doen't fear me being any hindrance to you, I have no more to say, 
ma'am," he remarked, as he moved towards the door. " I come heer with 
no hope, and I take away no hope. I have done what I thowt should be 
done, but I never looked fur any good to come of my stan'ning where I do. 
This has been too evil a house fur me and mine, fur me to be in my right 
senses and expect it." 

With this, we departed ; leaving her standing by her elbow chair, a 
picture of a noble presence and a handsome face. 

We had, on our way out, to cross a paved hall, with glass sides and roof, 
over which a vine was trained. Its leaves and shoots were green then, and 
the day being sunny, a pair of glass doors leading to the garden were 
thrown open. Eosa Dartle, entering this way with a noiseless step, when 
we were close to them, addressed herself to me : 

" You do well," she said, " indeed, to bring this fellow here ! " 

Such a concentration of rage and scorn as darkened her face, and flashed 
in her jet-black eyes, I could not have thought compressible even into that 
face. The scar made by the hammer was, as usual in this excited state of 
her features, strongly marked. When the throbbing I had seen before, 
came into it as I looked at her, she absolutely lifted up her hand, and 
struck it. 

" This is a fellow," she said, " to champion and bring here, is he not ? 
You are a true man ! " 

" Miss Dartle," I returned, " you are surely not so unjust as to 
condemn me ! " 

" Why do you bring division between these two mad creatures? " she 
returned. " Don't you know that they are both mad with their own self- 
will and pride? " 

" Is it my doing? " I returned. 

"Is it your doing ! " she retorted. " Why do you bring this man 
here?" 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 333 

" He is a deeply -injured man, Miss Dartle," I replied. " You may not 
know it." 

" I know that James Steerforth," she said, with her hand on her bosom, 
as if to prevent the storm that was raging there, from being loud, " has a 
false, corrupt heart, and is a traitor. But what need I know or care about 
this fellow, and his common niece ? " 

" Miss Dartle," I returned, "you deepen the injury. It is sufficient 
already. I will only say, at parting, that you do him a great wrong." 

" I do him no wrong," she returned. " They are a depraved worth- 
less set. I would have her whipped ! " 

Mr. Peggotty passed on, without a word, and went out at the door. 

" Oh, shame, Miss Dartle ! shame ! " I said indignantly. " How can 
you bear to trample on his undeserved affliction ! " 

" I would trample on them all," she answered. " I would have his 
house pulled down. I would have her branded on the face, drest in rags, 
and cast out in the streets to starve. If I had the power to sit in judg- 
ment on her, I would see it done. See it done ? I would do it ! I 
detest her. If I ever could reproach her with her infamous condition, 
I would go anywhere to do so. If I could hunt her to her grave, I 
would. If there was any word of comfort that would be a solace to her in 
her dying hour, and only I possessed it, I wouldn't part with it for 
Life itself." 

The mere vehemence of her words can convey, I am sensible, but a weak 
impression of the passion by which she was possessed, and which made 
itself articulate in her whole figure, though her voice, instead of being 
raised, was lower than usual. No description I could give of her would 
do justice to my recollection of her, or to her entire deliverance of herself 
to her anger. I have seen passion in many forms, but I have never seen 
it in such a form as that. 

When I joined Mr. Peggotty, he was walking slowly and thoughtfully 
down the hill. He told me, as soon as I came up with him, that having 
now discharged his mind of what he had purposed doing in London, he 
meant "to set out on his travels," that night. I asked him where he 
meant to go ? He only answered, " I 'm a going, sir, to seek my niece." 

We went back to the little lodging over the chandler's shop, and there 
I found an opportunity of repeating to Peggotty what he had said to me. 
She informed me, in return, that he had said the same to her that morn- 
ing. She knew no more than I did, where he was going, but she thought 
he had some project shaped out in his mind. 

I did not like to leave him, under such circumstances, and we all three 
dined together off a beefsteak pie — which was one of the many good 
things for which Peggotty was famous — and which was curiously flavoured 
on this occasion, I recollect "well, by a miscellaneous taste of tea, coffee, 
butter, bacon, cheese, new loaves, firewood, candles, and walnut ketchup, 
continually ascending from the shop. After dinner we sat for an hour or 
so near the window, without talking much ; and then Mr. Peggotty got 
up, and brought his oilskin bag and his stout stick, and laid them on 
the table. 

He accepted, from his sister's stock of ready money, a small sum on 
account of his legacy; barely enough, I should have thought, to keep 



334 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

him for a month. He promised to communicate with me, when anything 
befel him ; and he slung his bag about him, took his hat and stick, and 
bade us both " Good bye ! " 

" All good attend you, dear old woman," he said, embracing Peggotty, 
" and you too, Mas'r Davy ! " shaking hands with me. " I 'm a going to 
seek her, fur and wide. If she should come home while I 'm away, — but 
ah, that ain't like to be ! — or if I should bring her back, my meaning is, 
that she and me shall live and die where no one can't reproach her. ] f 
any hurt should come to me, remember that the last words I left for her 
was, ' My unchanged love is with my darling child, and I forgive her !' " 

He said this solemnly, bare-headed ; then, putting on his hat, he went 
down the stairs, and away. We followed to the door. It was a warm, 
dusty evening, just the time when, in the great main thoroughfare out of 
which that bye- way turned, there was a temporary lull in the eternal tread 
of feet upon the pavement, and a strong red sunshine. He turned, alone, at 
the corner of our shady street, into a glow of light, in which we lost him. 

Rarely did that hour of the evening come, rarely did I wake at night, 
rarely did I look up at the moon, or stars, or watch the falling rain, or 
hear the wind, but I thought of his solitary figure toiling on, poor pilgrim, 
and recalled the words : 

" I 'm a going to seek her, fur and wide. If any hurt should come 
to me, remember that the last words I left for her was, ' My unchanged 
love is with my darling child, and I forgive her !' " 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

BLISSFUL. 



All this time, I had gone on loving Dora, harder than ever. Her idea 
was my refuge in disappointment and distress, and made some amends to 
me, even for the loss of my friend. The more I pitied myself, or pitied 
others, the more I sought for consolation in the image of Dora. 
The greater the accumulation of deceit and trouble in the world, the 
brighter and the purer shone the star of Dora high above the world. 
I don't think I had any definite idea where Dora came from, or in what 
degree she was related to a higher order of beings ; but I am quite sure I 
should have scouted the notion of her being simply human, like any other 
young lady, with indignation and contempt. 

If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over 
head and ears in love with her, but I was saturated through and through. 
Enough love might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking, 
to drown anybody in ; and yet there would have remained enough within 
me, and all over me, to pervade my entire existence. 

The first thing I did, on my own account, when I came back, was to 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 335 

take a night-walk to Norwood, and, like the subject of a venerable riddle 
of my childhood to go " round and round the house, without ever touching 
the house," thinking about Dora. I believe the theme of this incompre- 
hensible conundrum was the moon. No matter what it was, I, the 
moon-struck slave of Dora, perambulated round and round the house and 
garden for two hours, looking through crevices in the palings, getting my 
chin by dint of violent exertion above the rusty nails on the top, blowing 
kisses at the lights in the windows, and romantically calling on the night, 
at intervals, to shield my Dora — I don't exactly know what from, I sup- 
pose from fire. Perhaps from mice, to which she had a great objection. 

My love was so much on my mind, and it was so natural to me to 
confide in Peggotty, when I found her again by my side of an evening 
with the old set of industrial implements, busily making the tour of my 
wardrobe, that I imparted to her, in a sufficiently roundabout way, my 
great secret. Peggotty was strongly interested, but I could not get her 
into my view of the case at all. She was audaciously prejudiced in my 
favour, and quite unable to understand why I should have any misgivings, 
or be low-spirited about it. ' The young' lady might think herself well 
off/ she observed, ' to have such a beau. And as to her Pa/ she said, 
* what did the gentleman expect, for gracious sake ! ' 

I observed, however, that Mr. Spenlow's Proctorial gown and stiff cravat 
took Peggotty down a little, and inspired her with a greater reverence for the 
man who was gradually becoming more and more etherealized in my eyes 
every day, and about whom a reflected radiance seemed to me to beam when 
he sat erect in Court among his papers, like a little light-house in a sea of 
stationery. And by-the-by, it used to be uncommonly strange to me to con- 
sider, I remember, as I sat in Court too, how those dim old judges and doc- 
tors wouldn't have cared for Dora, if they had known her; how they wouldn't 
have gone out of their senses with rapture, if marriage with Dora had 
been proposed to them ; how Dora might have sung, and played upon 
that glorified guitar, until she led me to the verge of madness, yet not 
have tempted one of those slow-goers an inch out of his road ! 

I despised them, to a man. Prozen-out old gardeners in the flower- 
beds of the heart, I took a personal offence against them all. The Bench 
was nothing to me but an insensible blunderer. The Bar had no more 
tenderness or poetry in it, than the Bar of a public-house. 

Taking the management of Peggotty 's affairs into my own hands, with 
no little pride, I proved the will, and came to a settlement with the Legacy 
Duty-office, and took her to the Bank, and soon got everything into an 
orderly train. We varied the legal character of these proceedings by going 
to see some perspiring Wax-work, in Pleet Street (melted, I should hope, 
these twenty years) ; and by visiting Miss Linwood's Exhibition, which I 
remember as a Mausoleum of needlework, favorable to self-examination 
and repentance ; and by inspecting the Tower of London ; and going to 
the top of St. Paul's. All these wonders afforded Peggotty as much 
pleasure as she was able to enjoy, under existing circumstances : except, I 
think, St. Paul's, which, from her long attachment to her workbox, became 
a rival of the picture on the lid, and was, in some particulars, vanquished, 
she considered, by that work of art. 

Peggotty's business, which was what we used to call " common form 



336 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

business " in the Commons (and very light and lucrative the common- 
form business was), being settled, I took her down to the office one 
morning to pay her bill. Mr. Spenlow had stepped out, old Tifley said, 
to get a gentleman sworn for a marriage license ; but as I knew he would 
be back directly, our place lying close to the Surrogate's, and to the Vicar- 
General's office too, I told Peggotty to wait. 

We were a little like undertakers, in the Commons, as regarded Probate 
transactions ; generally making it a rule to look more or less cut up, when 
we had to deal with clients in mourning. In a similar feeling of delicacy, 
we were always blithe and light-hearted with the Hcense clients. There- 
fore I hinted to Peggotty that she would find Mr. Spenlow much recovered 
from the shock of Mr. Barkis's decease ; and indeed he came in like a 
bridegroom. 

But neither Peggotty nor I had eyes for him, when we saw, in company 
with him, Mr. Murdstone. He was very little changed. His hair looked 
as thick, and was certainly as black, as ever ; and his glance was as little 
to be trusted as of old. 

"Ah, Copperfield? " said Mr. Spenlow. "You know this gentleman, 
I believe ? " 

I made my gentleman a distant bow, and Peggotty barely recognised 
him. He was, at first, somewhat disconcerted to meet us two together; 
but quickly decided what to do, and came up to me. 

" I hope," he said, " that you are doing well? " 

" It can hardly be interesting to vou," said I. "Yes, if vou wish to 
know." 

"We looked at each other, and he addressed himself to Peggotty. 

"And you," said he. " I am sorry to observe that you have lost your 
husband." 

" It 's not the first loss I have had in my Hfe, Mr. Murdstone," replied 
Peggotty, trembling from head to foot. " I am glad to hope that there 
is nobody to blame for this one, — nobody to answer for it." 

" Ha ! " said he ; " that's a comfortable reflection. Y'ou have done 
your duty ? " 

" I have not worn any body's life away," said Peggotty, " I am 
thankful to think! No, Mr. 'Murdstone, I have not worrited and 
frightened any sweet creetur to an early grave ! " 

He eyed her gloomily — remorsefully I thought — for an instant ; and 
said, turning his head towards me, but looking at my feet instead of my 
face : 

" We are not likely to encounter soon again ; — a source of satisfaction 
io us both, no doubt, for such meetings as this can never be agreeable. 
I do not expect that you, who always rebelled against my just authority, 
exerted for your benefit and reformation, should owe me any good will 
now. There is an antipathy between us " 

" An old one, I believe? " said I, interrupting him. 

He smiled, and shot as evil a glance at me as could come from his dark 
eyes. 

" It rankled in your baby breast," he said. " It embittered the life of 
your poor mother. You are right. I hope you may do better, yet ; I hope 
you may correct yourself." 



OF DAVID COPPEUFIELD. 337 

Here he ended the dialogue, which had been carried on in a low voice, 
in a corner of the outer office, by passing into Mr. Spenlow's room, and 
saying aloud, in his smoothest manner : 

" Gentlemen of Mr. Spenlow's profession are accustomed to family 
differences, and know how complicated and difficult they always are ! " 
With that, he paid the money for his license ; and, receiving it neatly folded 
from Mr. Spenlow, together with a shake of the hand, and a polite wish 
for his happiness and the lady's, went out of the office. 

I might have had more difficulty in constraining myself to be silent 
under his words, if I had had less difficulty in impressing upon Peggotty 
(who was only angry on my account, good creature !) that we were not in 
a place for recrimination, and that I besought her to hold her peace. She 
was so unusually roused, that I was glad to compound for an affectionate 
hug, elicited by this revival in her mind of our old injuries, and to make 
the best I could of it, before Mr. Spenlow and the clerks. 

Mr. Spenlow did not appear to know what the connexion between 
Mr. Murdstone and myself was ; which I was glad of, for I could not bear 
to acknowledge him, even in my own breast, remembering what I did of 
the history of my poor mother. Mr. Spenlow seemed to think, if he thought 
anything about the matter, that my aunt was the leader of the state 
party in our family, and that there was a rebel party commanded by 
somebody else — so I gathered at least from what he said, while we were 
waiting for Mr. Tiffey to make out Peggotty's bill of costs. 

" Miss Trotwood," he remarked, " is very firm, no doubt, and not 
likely to give way to opposition. I have an admiration for her character, 
and I may congratulate you, Copperfleld, on being on the right side. 
Differences between relations are much to be deplored — but they are 
extremely general — and the great thing is, to be on the right side : " 
meaning, I take it, on the side of the moneyed interest. 

" Kathera good marriage this, I believe? " said Mr. Spenlow. 

I explained that I knew nothing about it. 

" Indeed ! " he said. " Speaking from the few words Mr. Murdstone 
dropped — as a man frequently does on these occasions — and from what 
Miss Murdstone let fall, I should say it was rather a good marriage." 

" Do you mean that there is money, sir ? " I asked. 

" Yes," said Mr. Spenlow, " 1 understand there 's money. Beauty 
too, I am told." 

" Indeed ? Is his new wife young ? " 

" Just of age," said Mr. Spenlow. " So lately, that I should think 
they had been waiting for that." 

" Lord deliver her ! " said Peggotty. So very emphatically and unex- 
pectedly, that we were all three discomposed ; until Tiffey came in with 
the bill. 

Old Tiffey soon appeared, however, and handed it to Mr. Spenlow, to 
look over. Mr. Spenlow, settling his chin in his cravat and rubbing it 
softly, went over the items with a deprecatory air — as if it were all Jorkins's 
doing — and handed it back to Tiffey with a bland sigh. 

" Yes," he said. " That 's right. Quite right. I should have been 
extremely happy, Copperfleld, to have limited these charges to the actual 
expenditure out of pocket ; but it is an irksome incident in my professional 

z 



338 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

life, that I am not at liberty to consult my own wishes. I have a partner 
— Mr. Jorkins." 

As he said this with a gentle melancholy, which was the next thing to 
making no charge at all, I expressed my acknowledgments on Peggotty's 
behalf, and paid Tiffey in bank notes. Peggotty then retired to her lodging, 
and Mr. Spenlow and I went into Court, where we had a divorce-suit 
coming on, under an ingenious little statute (repealed now, I believe, but 
in virtue of which I have seen several marriages annulled), of which the 
merits were these. The husband, whose name was Thomas Benjamin, 
had taken out his marriage license as Thomas only; suppressing the 
Benjamin, in case he should not find himself as comfortable as he expected. 
Not finding himself as comfortable as he expected, or being a little 
fatigued with his wife, poor fellow, he now came forward by a friend, 
after being married a year or two, and declared that his name was Thomas 
Benjamin, and therefore he was not married at all. Which the Court con- 
firmed, to his great satisfaction. 

I must say that I had my doubts about the strict justice of this, and 
was not even frightened out of them by the bushel of wheat which recon- 
ciles all anomalies. But Mr. Spenlow argued the matter with me. He 
said, Look at the world, there was good and evil in that ; look at the 
ecclesiastical law, there was good and evil in that. It was all part of a 
system. Very good. There you were ! 

I had not the hardihood to suggest to Dora's father that possibly 
we might even improve the world a little, if we got up early in the morn- 
ing, and took off our coats to the work ; but I confessed that I thought 
we might improve the Commons. Mr. Spenlow replied that he would 
particularly advise me to dismiss that idea from my mind, as not being 
worthy of my gentlemanly character ; but that he would be glad to hear 
from me of what improvement I thought the Commons susceptible ? 

Taking that part of the Commons which happened to be nearest to 
us — for our man was unmarried by this time, and we were out of Court, 
and strolling past the Prerogative Office — I submitted that I thought 
the Prerogative Office rather a queerly managed institution. Mr. 
Spenlow inquired in what respect ? I replied, with all clue deference to 
his experience (but with more deference, I am afraid, to his being Dora's 
father), that perhaps it was a little nonsensical that the Registry of that 
Court, containing the original wills of all persons leaving effects within 
the immense province of Canterbury, for three whole centuries, should be an 
accidental building, never designed for the purpose, leased by the registrars 
for their own private emolument, unsafe, not even ascertained to be fire- 
proof, choked with the important documents it held, and positively, from 
the roof to the basement, a mercenary speculation of the registrars, who 
took great fees from the public, and crammed the public's wills away 
anyhow and anywhere, having no other object than to get rid of them 
cheaply. That, perhaps, it was a little unreasonable that these registrars 
in the receipt of profits amounting to eight or nine thousand pounds a 
year (to say nothing of the profits of the deputy registrars, and clerks of 
seats), should not be obliged to spend a little of that money, in finding a 
reasonably safe place for the important documents which all classes of 
people were compelled to hand over to them, whether they would or no. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 339 

That, perhaps, it was a little unjust that all the great offices in this great 
office, should be magnificent sinecures, while the unfortunate working- 
clerks in the cold dark room up-stairs were the worst rewarded, and the 
least considered men, doing important services, in London. That perhaps 
it was a little indecent that the principal registrar of all, whose duty it 
was to find the public, constantly resorting to this place, all needful 
accommodation, should be an enormous sinecurist in virtue of that post 
(and might be, besides, a clergyman, a pluralist, the holder of a stall in 
a cathedral, and what not), — while the public was put to the incon- 
venience of which we had a specimen every afternoon when the office 
was busy, and which we knew to be quite monstrous. That, perhaps, in 
short, this Prerogative Office of the diocese of Canterbury was altogether 
such a pestilent job, and such a pernicious absurdity, that but for its 
being squeezed away, in a corner of Saint Paul's Churchyard, which few 
people knew, it must have been turned completely inside out, and upside 
down, long ago. 

Mr. Spenlow smiled as I became modestly warm on the subject, and 
then argued this question with me as he had argued the other. He said, 
what was it after all ? It was a question of feeling. If the public felt 
that their wills were in safe keeping, and took it for granted that the office 
was not to be made better, who was the worse for it ? Nobody ? Who was 
the better for it ? All the Sinecurists. Very well. Then the good pre- 
dominated. It might not be a perfect system ; nothing was perfect ; but 
what he objected to, was, the insertion of the wedge. Under the Prero- 
gative Office, the country had been glorious. Insert the wedge into the 
Prerogative Office, and the country would cease to be glorious. He 
considered it the principle of a gentleman to take things as he found them; 
and he had no doubt the Prerogative Office would last our time. I de- 
ferred to his opinion, though I had great doubts of it myself. I find he 
was right, however ; for it has not only lasted to the present moment, 
but has done so in the teeth of a great parliamentary report made (not 
too willingly) eighteen years ago, when all these objections of mine were 
set forth in detail, and when the existing stowage for wills was described 
as equal to the accumulation of only two years and a half more. What 
they have done with them since ; whether they have lost many, or whether 
they sell any, now and then, to the butter shops ; I don't know. I am 
glad mine is not there, and I hope it may not go there, yet awhile. 

I have set all this down, in my present blissful chapter, because here it 
comes into its natural place. Mr. Spenlow and I falling into this con- 
versation, prolonged it and our saunter to and fro, until we diverged 
into general topics. And so it came about, in the end, that Mr. Spenlow 
told me this day week was Dora's birthday, and he would be glad if I 
would come down and join a little pic-nic on the occasion. I went out 
of my senses immediately ; became a mere driveller next day, on receipt 
of a little lace-edged sheet of note paper, " Favoured by papa. To 
remind ;" and passed the intervening period in a state of dotage. 

I think I committed every possible absurdity, in the way of preparation 
for this blessed event. I turn hot when I remember the cravat I bought. 
My boots might be placed in any collection of instruments of torture. I 
provided, and sent down by the Norwood coach the night before, a 

z 2 



340 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

delicate little hamper, amounting in itself, I thought, almost to a 
declaration. There were crackers in it with the tenderest mottos that 
could be got for money. At six in the morning, I was in Covent Garden 
Market, buying a bouquet for Dora. At ten I was on horseback (I hired 
a gallant grey, for the occasion), with the bouquet in my hat, to keep it 
fresh, trotting down to Norwood. 

I suppose that when I saw Dora in the garden and pretended not to 
see her, and rode past the house pretending to be anxiously looking for it, 
I committed two small fooleries which other young gentlemen in my 
circumstances might have committed — because they came so very natural 
to me. But oh ! when I did find the house, and did dismount at the 
garden gate, and drag those stoney-hearted boots across the lawn to Dora 
sitting on a garden seat under a lilac tree, what a spectacle she was, 
upon that beautiful morning, among the butterflies, in a white chip 
bonnet and a dress of celestial blue ! 

There was a young lady with her — comparatively stricken in years — 
almost twenty, I should say. Her name was Miss Mills, and Dora 
called her Julia. She was the bosom friend of Dora. Happy Miss 
Mills ! 

Jip was there, and Jip would bark at me again. When I presented my 
bouquet, he gnashed his teeth with jealousy. Well he might. If he had 
the least idea how I adored his mistress, well he might ! 

" Oh, thank you, Mr. Copperfield! What dear flowers!" said Dora. 

I had had an intention of saying (and had been studying the best form 
of words for three miles) that I thought them beautiful before I saw them 
so near her. But I couldn't manage it. She was too bewildering. To 
see her lay the flowers against her little dimpled chin, was to lose all pre- 
sence of mind and power of language in a feeble ecstacy. I wonder I 
didn't say, " Kill me, if you have a heart, Miss Mills. Let me die 
here!" 

Then Dora held my flowers to Jip to smell. Then Jip growled, and 
wouldn't smell them. Then Dora laughed, and held them a little closer to 
Jip, to make him. Then Jip laid hold of a bit of geranium with his teeth, 
and worried imaginary cats in it. Then Dora beat him, and pouted, and 
said, " My poor beautiful flowers ! " as compassionately, I thought, as if 
Jip had laid hold of me. I wished he had ! 

" You '11 be so glad to hear, Mi*. Copperfield," said Dora, " that that 
cross Miss Murdstone is not here. She has gone to her brother's mar- 
riage, and will be away at least three weeks. Isn't that delightful ? " 

I said I was sure it must be delightful to her, and all that was delight- 
ful to her was delightful to me. Miss Mills, with an air of superior wisdom 
and benevolence, smiled upon us. 

" She is the most disagreeable thing I ever saw," said Dora. "You 
can't believe how ill-tempered and shocking she is, Julia." 

" Yes, I can, my dear ! " said Julia. 

" You can, perhaps, love," returned Dora, with her hand on Julia's. 
" Forgive my not excepting you, my dear, at first." 

I learnt, from this, that Miss Mills had had her trials in the course of a 
chequered existence ; and that to these, perhaps, I might refer that wise 
benignity of manner which I had already noticed. I found, in the course 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 341 

of the day, that this was the case : Miss Mills having been unhappy in 
a misplaced affection, and being understood to have retired from the world 
on her awful stock of experience, but still to take a calm interest in the 
unblighted hopes and loves of youth. 

But now Mr. Spenlow came out of the house, and Dora went to him, 
saying, " Look, papa, what beautiful flowers ! " And Miss Mills smiled 
thoughtfully, as who should say, "Ye May-flies, enjoy your brief existence 
in the bright morning of life ! " And we all walked from the lawn towards 
the carriage, which was getting ready. 

I shall never have such a ride again. I have never had such another. 
There were only those three, their hamper, my hamper, and the guitar- 
case, in the phaeton ; and, of course, the phaeton was open ; and I rode 
behind it, and Dora sat with her back to the horses, looking towards me. 
She kept the bouquet close to her on the cushion, and wouldn't allow Jip 
to sit on that side of her at all, for fear he should crush it. She often 
carried it in her hand, often refreshed herself with its fragrance. Our eyes 
at those times often met ; and my great astonishment is that I didn't go 
over the head of my gallant grey into the carriage. 

There was dust, I believe. There was a good deal of dust, I believe. 
I have a faint impression that Mr. Spenlow remonstrated with me for 
riding in it ; but I knew of none. I was sensible of a mist of love and 
beauty about Dora, but of nothing else. He stood up sometimes, and 
asked me what I thought of the prospect. I said it was delightful, and I 
daresay it was ; but it was all Dora to me. The sun shone Dora, and the 
birds sang Dora. The south wind blew Dora, and the wild flowers in the 
hedges were all Doras, to a bud. My comfort is, Miss Mills understood 
me. Miss Mills alone could enter into my feelings thoroughly. 

I don't know how long we were going, and to this hour I know as 
little where we went. Perhaps it was near Guildford. Perhaps some 
Arabian-night magician, opened up the place for the day, and shut it for 
ever when we came away. It was a green spot, on a hill, carpeted with 
soft turf. There were shady trees, and heather, and, as far as the eye 
could see, a rich landscape. 

It was a trying thing to find people here, waiting for us ; and my 
jealousy, even of the ladies, knew no bounds. But all of my own sex — 
especially one impostor, three or four years my elder, with a red whisker, 
on which he established an amount of presumption not be endured — were 
my mortal foes. 

We all unpacked our baskets, and employed ourselves in getting dinner 
ready. Bed Whisker pretended he could make a salad (which I don't 
believe), and obtruded himself on public notice. Some of the young ladies 
washed the lettuces for him, and sliced them under his directions. Dora 
was among these. I felt that fate had pitted me against this man, and 
one of us must fall. 

Bed Whisker made his salad (I wondered how they could eat it. 
Nothing should have induced me to touch it !) and voted himself into the 
charge of the wine-cellar, which he constructed, being an ingenious beast, 
in the hollow trunk of a tree. By-and-by I saw him, with the majority of 
a lobster on his plate, eating his dinner at the feet of Dora ! 

I have but an indistinct idea of what happened for some time after this 



342 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

baleful object presented itself to my view. I was very merry, I know ; but 
it was hollow merriment. I attached myself to a young creature in pink, 
with little eyes, and flirted with her desperately. She received my atten- 
tions with favour; but whether on my account solely, or because she had 
any designs on Eed Whisker, I can't say. Dora's health was drunk. 
When I drank it, I affected to interrupt my conversation for that purpose, 
and to resume it immediately afterwards. I caught Dora's eye as I bowed 
to her, and I thought it looked appealing. But it looked at me over the 
head of Eed Whisker, and I was adamant. 

The young creature in pink had a mother in green ; and I rather think 
the latter separated us from motives of policy. Howbeit, there was a 
general breaking up of the party, while the remnants of the dinner were 
being put away ; and I strolled oif by myself among the trees, in a raging 
and remorseful state. I was debating whether I should pretend that I 
was not well, and fly — I don't know where — upon my gallant grey, when 
Dora and Miss Mills met me. 

" Mr. Copperfield," said Miss Mills, " you are dull." 
I begged her pardon. Not at all. 
" And, Dora," said Miss Mills, "you are dull." 
Oh dear no ! Not in the least. 

" Mr. Copperfield and Dora," said Miss Mills, with an almost venerable 
air. " Enough of this. Do not allow a trivial misunderstanding to 
wither the blossoms of spring, which, once put forth and blighted, can not 
be renewed. I speak," said Miss Mills, " from experience of the past — 
the remote irrevocable past. The gushing fountains which sparkle in the 
sun, must not be stopped in mere caprice; the oasis in the desert of 
Sahara, must not be plucked up idly." 

I hardly knew what I did, I was burning all over to that extraordinary 
extent; but I took Dora's little hand and kissed it — and she let me ! I 
kissed Miss Mills's hand; and we all seemed, to my thinking, to go 
straight up to the seventh heaven. 

We did not come down again. We stayed up there all the evening. At 
first we strayed to and fro among the trees : I with Dora's shy arm drawn 
through mine : and Heaven knows, folly as it all was, it would have been 
a happy fate to have been struck immortal with those foolish feelings, and 
have strayed among the trees for ever ! 

But, much too soon, we heard the others laughing and talking, and 
calling " where's Dora ! " So we went back, and they wanted Dora to 
sing. Eed Whisker would have got the guitar-case out of the carriage, 
but Dora told him nobody knew where it was, but I. So Eed Whisker 
was done for in a moment ; and I got it, and / unlocked it, and I took the 
guitar out, and / sat by her, and I held her handkerchief and gloves, and 
I drank in every note of her dear voice, and she sang to me who loved her, 
and all the others might applaud as much as they liked, but they had 
nothing to do with it ! 

I was intoxicated with joy. I was afraid it was too happy to be 
real, and that I should wake in Buckingham Street presently, and hear 
Mrs. Crupp clinking the teacups in getting breakfast ready. But Dora 
sang, and others sang, and Miss Mills sang — about the slumbering echoes 
in the caverns of Memory ; as if she were a hundred years old — and the 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 343 

evening came on; and we had tea, with a kettle boiling gipsy -fashion ; and 
I was still as happy as ever. 

I was happier than ever when the party broke up, and the other people, 
defeated Red Whisker and all, went their several ways, and we went ours 
through the still evening and the dying light, with sweet scents rising 
up around us. Mr. Spenlow being a little drowsy after the champagne — 
honour to the soil that grew the grape, to the grape that made the wine, 
to the sun that ripened it, and to the merchant who adulterated it ! — and 
being fast asleep in a corner of the carriage, I rode by the side, and talked 
to Dora. She admired my horse and patted him — oh, what a dear little 
hand it looked upon a horse ! — and her shawl would not keep right, and 
now and then I drew it round her with my arm ; and I even fancied that 
.Tip began to see how it was, and to understand that he must make up his 
mind to be friends with me. 

That sagacious Miss Mills, too ; that amiable, though quite used up, 
recluse ; that little patriarch of something less than twenty, who had done 
with the world, and mustn't on any account have the slumbering echoes 
in the caverns of Memory awakened ; what a kind thing she did ! 

" Mr. Copperfield," said Miss Mills, "come to this side of the carriage 
a moment — if you can spare a moment. I want to speak to you." 

Behold me, on my gallant grey, bending at the side of Miss Mills, with 
my hand upon the carriage-door ! 

" Dora is coming to stay with me. She is coming home with me the 
day after to-morrow. If you would like to call, I am sure papa would be 
happy to see you." 

What could I do but invoke a silent blessing on Miss Mills's head, and 
store Miss Mills's address in the securest corner of my memory ! What 
could I do but tell Miss Mills, with grateful looks and fervent words, how 
much I appreciated her good offices, and what an inestimable value I set 
upon her friendship ! 

Then Miss Mills benignantly dismissed me, saying, "Go back to Dora!" 
and I went ; and Dora leaned out of the carriage to talk to me, and 
we talked all the rest of the way ; and I rode my gallant grey so close to 
the wheel that I grazed his near fore leg against it, and " took the bark 
off," as his owner told me, " to the tune of three pun' sivin " — which I 
paid, and thought extremely cheap for so much joy. What time Miss 
Mills sat looking at the moon, murmuring verses and recalling, I suppose, 
the ancient days when she and earth had anything in common. 

Norwood was many miles too near, and we reached it many hours too 
soou ; but Mr. Spenlow came to himself a little short of it, and said, 
"You must come in, Copperfield, and rest! " and I consenting, we had 
sandwiches and wine-and-water. In the light room, Dora blushing looked 
so lovely, that I could not tear myself away, but sat there staring, in a 
dream, until the snoring of Mr. Spenlow inspired me with sufficient con- 
sciousness to take my leave. So we parted ; I riding all the way to 
London with the farewell touch of Dora's hand still light on mine, recalling 
every incident and word ten thousand times ; lying down in my own bed 
at last, as enraptured a young noodle as ever was carried out of his five 
wits by love. 

When I awoke next morning, I was resolute to declare my passion 



344 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

to Dora, and know my fate. Happiness or misery was now the ques- 
tion. There was no other question that I knew of in the world, and 
only Dora could give the answer to it. I passed three days in a luxury 
of wretchedness, torturing myself by putting every conceivable variety of 
discouraging construction on all that ever had taken place between Dora 
and me. At last, arrayed for the purpose at a vast expense, I went to 
Miss Mills's, fraught with a declaration. 

How many times I went up and down the street, and round the square 
— painfully aware of being a much better answer to the old riddle than the 
original one — before I could persuade myself to go up the steps and 
knock, is no matter now. Even when, at last, I had knocked, and was 
waiting at the door, I had some flurried thought of asking if that were 
Mr. Blackboy's (in imitation of poor Barkis), begging pardon, and retreating. 
But I kept my ground. 

Mr. Mills was not at home. I did not expect he would be. Nobody 
wanted him. Miss Mills was at home. Miss Mills would do. 

I was shown into a room upstairs, where Miss Mills and Dora were. 
Jip was there. Miss Mills was copying music (I recollect, it was a 
new song, called Aifection's Dirge), and Dora was painting flowers. What 
were my feelings, when I recognised my own flowers ; the identical Covent 
Garden Market purchase ! I cannot say that they were very like, or that 
they particularly resembled any flowers that have ever come under my 
observation ; but I knew from the paper round them, which was accurately 
copied, what the composition was. 

Miss Mills was very glad to see me, and very sorry her Papa was not at 
home : though I thought we all bore that with fortitude. Miss Mills was 
conversational for a few minutes, and then, laying down her pen upon 
Affection's Dirge, got up, and left the room. 

I began to think I would put it off till to-morrow. 

" I hope your poor horse was not tired, when he got home at night," 
said Dora, lifting up her beautiful eyes. " It was a long way for him." 

I began to think I would do it to-day. 

" It was a long way for him" said I, " for he had nothing to uphold him 
on the journey." 

" Wasn't he fed, poor thing ? " asked Dora. 

I began to think I would pat it off till to-morrow. 

" Ye — yes," I said, " he was well taken care of. I mean he had not the 
unutterable happiness that I had in being so near you." 

Dora bent her head over her drawing, and said, after a little while — 
I had sat, in the interval, in a burning fever, and with my legs in a very 
rigid state — 

" You didn't seem to be sensible of that happiness yourself, at one time 
of the day." 

I saw now that I was in for it, and it must be done on the spot. 

" You didn't care for that happiness in the least," said Dora, slightly 
raising her eyebrows, and shaking her head, " when you were sitting by 
Miss Kitt." 

Kitt, I should observe, was the name of the creature in pink, with the 
little eyes. 

" Though certainly I don't know why you should," said Dora, " or why 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 345 

you should call it a happiness at all. But of course you don't mean what 
you say. And I am sure no one doubts your being at liberty to do what- 
ever you like. Jip, you naughty boy, come here ! " 

I don't know how I did it. I did it in a moment. I intercepted Jip. I had 
Dora in my arms. I was full of eloquence. I never stopped for a word. 
I told her how I loved her. I told her I should die without her. I told 
her that I idolised and worshipped her. Jip barked madly all the time. 

When Dora hung her head and cried, and trembled, my eloquence 
increased so much the more. If she would like me to die for her, she 
had but to say the word, and I was ready. Life without Dora's love was 
not a thing to have on any terms. I couldn't bear it, and I wouldn't. I 
had loved her every minute, day and night, since I first saw her. I loved 
her at that minute to distraction. I should always love her, every minute, 
to distraction. Lovers had loved before, and lovers would love again ; 
but no lover had ever loved, might, could, would, or should ever love, as 
I loved Dora. The more I raved, the more Jip barked. Each of us, in 
his own way, got more mad every moment. 

Well, well ! Dora and I were sitting on the sofa by-and-by, quiet 
enough, and Jip was lying in her lap, winking peacefully at me. It was 
off my mind. I was in a state of perfect rapture. Dora and I were 
engaged. 

I suppose we had some notion that this was to end in marriage. We 
must have had some, because Dora stipulated that we were never to be 
married without her papa's consent. But, in our youthful ecstacy, I 
don't think that we really looked before us or behind us ; or had any 
aspiration beyond the ignorant present. We were to keep our secret from 
Mr. Spenlow; but I am sure the idea never entered my head, then, that there 
was anything dishonorable in that. 

Miss Mills was more than usually pensive when Dora, going to find her, 
brought her back ; — I apprehend, because there was a tendency in what had 
passed to awaken the slumbering echoes in the caverns of memory. But 
she gave us her blessing, and the assurance of her lasting friendship, and 
spoke to us, generally, as became a Voice from the Cloister. 

What an idle time it was ! What an unsubstantial, happy, foolish time 
it was ! 

When I measured Dora's finger for a ring that was to be made of 
Forget-me-nots, and when the jeweller, to whom I took the measure, found 
me out, and laughed over his order book, and charged me anything he 
liked, for the pretty little toy, with its blue stones — so associated in my 
remembrance with Dora's hand, that yesterday, when I saw such another, 
by chance, on the finger of my own daughter, there was a momentary 
stirring in my heart, like pain ! 

When I walked about, exalted with my secret, and full of my own 
interest, and felt the dignity of loving Dora, and of being beloved, so much, 
that if I had walked the air, I could not have been more above the people 
not so situated, who were creeping on the earth ! 

When we had those meetings in the garden of the square, and sat within 
the dingy summer-house, so happy, that I love the London sparrows to this 
hour, for nothing else, and see the plumage of the tropics in their smoky 
feathers ! 



346 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

When we had our first great quarrel (within a week of our betrothal), 
and when Dora sent me back the ring, enclosed in a despairing cocked- 
hat note, wherein she used the terrible expression that " our love had 
begun in folly, and ended in madness ! " which dreadful words occasioned 
me to tear my hair, and cry that all was over ! 

When, under cover of the night, I flew to Miss Mills, whom I saw by 
stealth in a back kitchen where there was a mangle, and implored Miss 
Mills to interpose between us and avert insanity. When Miss Mills under- 
took the office and returned with Dora, exhorting us, from the pulpit of 
her own bitter youth, to mutual concession, and the avoidance of the Desert 
of Sahara ! 

When we cried, and made it up, and were so blest again, that the back- 
kitchen, mangle and all, changed to Love's own temple, where we arranged 
a plan of correspondence through Miss Mills, always to comprehend at 
least one letter on each side every day ! 

What an idle time ! What an unsubstantial, happy, foolish time ! Of all 
the times of mine that Time has in his grip, there is none that in one 
retrospection I can smile at half so much, and think of half so tenderly. 



CHAPTER XXX1Y. 



MY AUNT ASTONISHES ME. 



I wrote to Agnes as soon as Dora and I were engaged. I wrote her 
a long letter, in which I tried to make her comprehend how blest I was, 
and what a darling Dora was. I entreated Agnes not to regard this as 
a thoughtless passion which could ever yield to any other, or had the 
least resemblance to the boyish fancies that we used to joke about. I 
assured her that its profundity was quite unfathomable, and expressed my 
belief that nothing like it had ever been known. 

Somehow, as I wrote to Agnes on a fine evening by my open window, 
and the remembrance of her clear calm eyes and gentle face came stealing 
over me, it shed such a peaceful influence upon the hurry and agitation 
in which I had been living lately, and of which my very happiness partook 
in some degree, that it soothed me into tears. I remember that I sat 
resting my head upon my hand, when the letter was half done, cherishing 
a general fancy as if Agnes were one of the elements of my natural home. 
As if, in the retirement of the house made almost sacred to me by her 
presence, Dora and I must be happier than anywhere. As if, in love, 
joy, sorrow, hope, or disappointment; in all emotions; my heart turned 
naturally there, and found its refuge and best friend. 

Of Steerforth, I said nothing. I only told her there had been sad grief 
at Yarmouth, on account of Emily's flight ; and that on me it made a 



OP DAVID COPPEBPIELD. 347 

double wound, by reason of the circumstances attending it. I knew how 
quick she always was to divine the truth, and that she would never be 
the first to breathe his name. 

To this letter, I received an answer by return of post. As I read it, I 
seemed to hear Agnes speaking to me. It was like her cordial voice in 
my ears. What can I say more ! 

While I had been away from home lately, Traddles had called twice or 
thrice. Finding Peggotty within, and being informed by Peggotty (who 
always volunteered that information to whomsoever would receive it), 
that she was my old nurse, he had established a good-humoured acquaint- 
ance with her, and had stayed to have a little chat with her about me. So 
Peggotty said ; but I am afraid the chat was all on her own side, and of 
immoderate length, as she was very difficult indeed to stop, God bless her ! 
when she had me for her theme. 

This reminds me, not only that I expected Traddles on a certain after- 
noon of his own appointing, which was now come, but that Mrs. Crupp 
had resigned everything appertaining to her office (the salary excepted) until 
Peggotty should cease to present herself. Mrs. Crupp, after holding 
divers conversations respecting Peggotty, in a very high pitched voice, on 
the staircase — with some invisible Familiar it would appear, for corporeally 
speaking she was quite alone at those times — addressed a letter to me, 
developing her views. Beginning it with that statement of universal applica- 
tion, which fitted every occurrence of her life, namely, that she was a mother 
herself, she went on to inform me that she had once seen very different 
days, but that at all periods of her existence she had had a constitutional 
objection to spies, intruders, and informers. She named no names, she 
said ; let them the cap fitted, wear it ; but spies, intruders, and informers, 
especially in widders' weeds (this clause was underlined), she had ever 
accustomed herself to look down upon. If a gentleman was the victim 
of spies, intruders, and informers (but still naming no names), that was his 
own pleasure. He had a right to please himself; so let him do. All 
that she, Mrs. Crupp, stipulated for, was, that she should not be " brought 
in contract " with such persons. Therefore she begged to be excused 
from any further attendance on the top set, until things was as they 
formerly was, and as they could be wished to be ; and further mentioned 
that her little book would be found upon the breakfast-table every Satur- 
day morning, when she requested an immediate settlement of the same, 
with the benevolent view of saving trouble, " and an ill-conwenience " to 
all parties. 

After this, Mrs. Crupp confined herself to making pitfalls on the stairs, 
principally with pitchers, and endeavouring to delude Peggotty into break- 
ing her legs. I found it rather harassing to live in this state of siege, 
but was too much afraid of Mrs. Crupp to see any way out of it. 

" My dear Copperfield," cried Traddles, punctually appearing at my 
door, in spite of all these obstacles, " how do you do ?" 

"My dear Traddles," said I, "I am delighted to see you at last, and 
very sorry I have not been at home before. But I have been so much 
engaged " 

" Yes, yes, I know," said Traddles, " of course. Your's lives in London, 
I think." 



348 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

"What did you say?" 

" She — excuse me — Miss D., you know," said Traddles, colouring in 
his great delicacy, " lives in London, I believe? " 

" Oh yes. Near London," 

" Mine, perhaps you recollect," said Traddles, with a serious look, 
" lives down in Devonshire — one of ten. Consequently, I am not so much 
engaged as you — in that sense." 

" I wonder you can bear," I returned, "to see her so seldom." 

" Hah ! " said Traddles, thoughtfully. " It does seem a wonder. I 
suppose it is, Copperfield, because there 's no help for it ? " 

" I suppose so," I replied, with a smile, and not without a blush. 
" And because you have so much constancy and patience, Traddles." 

" Dear me ! " said Traddles, considering about it, " do I strike you in 
that way, Copperfield ? Really I didn't know that I had. But she is such 
an extraordinarily dear girl herself, that it 's possible she may have imparted 
something of those virtues to me. Now you mention it, Copperfield, I 
shouldn't wonder at all. I assure you she is always forgetting herself, and 
taking care of the other nine." 

" Is she the eldest ? " I inquired. 

" Oh dear, no," said Traddles. " The eldest is a Beauty." 

He saw, I suppose, that I could not help smiling at the simplicity of 
this reply ; and added, with a smile upon his own ingenuous face : 

" Not, of course, but that my Sophy — pretty name, Copperfield, I 
always think ? " 

" Very pretty ! " said I. 

" Not, of course, but that Sophy is beautiful too, in my eyes, and would 
be one of the dearest girls that ever was, in anybody's eyes (I should 
think). But when I say the eldest is a Beauty, I mean she really is a — " 
he seemed to be describing clouds about himself, with both hands : 
" Splendid, you know," said Traddles, energetically. 

" Indeed ! " said I. 

" Oh, I assure you," said Traddles, " something very uncommon, 
indeed ! Then, you know, being formed for society and admiration, and 
not being able to enjoy much of it, in consequence of their limited means, 
she naturally gets a little irritable and exacting, sometimes. Sophy puts 
her in good humour ! " 

"Is Sophy the youngest?" I hazarded. 

" Oh dear, no ! " said Traddles, stroking his chin. " The two youngest 
are only nine and ten. Sophy educates 'em." 

" The second daughter, perhaps ? " I hazarded. 

" No," said Traddles. " Sarah 's the second. Sarah has something the 
matter with her spine, poor girl. The malady will wear out by-and-by, 
the doctors say, but in the meantime she has to lie down for a twelvemonth. 
Sophy nurses her. Sophy 's the fourth." 

" Is the mother living? " I inquired. 

" Oh yes," said Traddles, " she is alive. She is a very superior woman, 
indeed, but the damp country is not adapted to her constitution, and — in 
fact, she has lost the use of her limbs." 

" Dear me ! " said I. 

" Yery sad, is it not ? " returned Traddles. " But in a merely domestic 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 349 

view it is not so bad as it might be, because Sophy takes her place. She 
is quite as much a mother to her mother, as she is to the other nine." 

I felt the greatest admiration for the virtues of this young lady ; and, 
honestly with the view of doing my best to prevent the good-nature of 
Traddles from being imposed upon, to the detriment of their joint pros- 
pects in life, inquired how Mr. Micawber was ? 

" He is quite well, Copperfield, thank you," said Traddles. " I am not 
living with him at present." 

"No?" 

" No. You see the truth is," said Traddles, in a whisper, " he has 
changed his name to Mortimer, in consequence of his temporary embarrass- 
ments ; and he don't come out till after dark — and then in spectacles. 
There was an execution put into our house, for rent. Mrs. Micawber was 
in such a dreadful state that I really couldn't resist giving my name to that 
second bill we spoke of here. You may imagine how delightful it was to 
my feelings, Copperfield, to see the matter settled with it, and Mrs. Micaw- 
ber recover her spirits." 

" Hum ! " said I. 

" Not that her happiness was of long duration," pursued Traddles, 
" for, unfortunately, within a week another execution came in. It broke 
up the establishment. I have been living in a furnished apartment since 
then, and the Mortimers have been very private indeed. I hope you won't 
think it selfish, Copperfield, if I mention that the broker carried off my 
little round table with the marble top, and Sophy's flower-pot and stand ? " 

" What a hard thing ! " I exclaimed indignantly. 

" It was a it was a pull," said Traddles, with his usual wince at 

that expression. " I don't mention it reproachfully, however, but with a 
motive. The fact is, Copperfield, I was unable to repurchase them at the 
time of their seizure ; in the first place, because the broker, having an idea 
that I wanted them, ran the price up to an extravagant extent ; and, in the 
second place, because I — hadn't any money. Now, I have kept my eye 
since, upon the broker's shop," said Traddles, with a great enjoyment of 
his mystery, " which is up at the top of Tottenham Court Koad, and, at 
last, to-day I find them put out for sale. I have only noticed them from 
over the way, because if the broker saw me, bless you, he 'd ask any price 
for them ! What has occurred to me, having now the money, is, that 
perhaps you wouldn't object to ask that good nurse of yours to come with 
me to the shop — I can show it her from round the corner of the next 
street— and make the best bargain for them, as if they were for herself, 
that she can ! " 

The delight with which Traddles propounded this plan to me, and the 
sense he had of its uncommon artfulness, are among the freshest things in 
my remembrance. 

I told him that my old nurse would be delighted to assist him, and that 
we would all three take the field together, but on one condition. That 
condition was, that he should make a solemn resolution to grant no more 
loans of his name, or anything else, to Mr. Micawber. 

" My dear Copperfield," said Traddles, " I have already done so, 
because I begin to feel that I have not only been inconsiderate, but that I 
have been positively unjust to Sophy. My word being passed to myself, 



350 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

there is no longer any apprehension ; but I pledge it to you, too, with the 
greatest readiness. That first unlucky obligation, I have paid. I have 
no doubt Mr. Micawber would have paid it if he could, but he could not. 
One thing I ought to mention, which I like very much in Mr. Micawber, 
Copperfield. It refers to the second obligation, which is not yet due. 
He don't tell me that it is provided for, but he says it will be. Now, I 
think there is something very fair and honest about that ! " 

I was unwilling to damp my good friend's confidence, and therefore 
assented. After a little further conversation, we went round to the 
chandler's shop, to enlist Peggotty ; Traddles declining to pass the evening 
with me, both because he endured the liveliest apprehensions that his 
property would be bought by somebody else before he could re-purchase 
it, and because it was the evening he always devoted to writing to the 
dearest girl in the world. 

I never shall forget him peeping round the corner of the street in 
Tottenham Court Ptoad, while Peggotty was bargaining for the precious 
articles ; or his agitation when she came slowly towards us after vainly 
offering a price, and was hailed by the relenting broker, aud went back 
again. The end of the negotiation was, that she bought the property on 
tolerably easy terms, and Traddles was transported with pleasure. 

" I am very much obliged to you, indeed," said Traddles, on hearing it 
was to be sent to where he lived, that night. " If I might ask one other 
favor, I hope you wouldn't think it absurd, Copperfield ? " 

I said beforehand, certainly not. 

" Then if you would be good enough," said Traddles to Peggotty, "to 
get the flower-pot now, I think I should like (it being Sophy's, Copperfield) 
to carry it home myself! " 

Peggotty was glad to get it for him, and he overwhelmed her with 
thanks, and went his way up Tottenham Court Eoad, carrying the flower- 
pot affectionately in his arms, with one of the most delighted expressions 
of countenance I ever saw. 

We then turned back towards my chambers. As the shops had charms 
for Peggotty which I never knew them possess in the same degree for 
anybody else, I sauntered easily along, amused by her staring in at the 
windows, and waiting for her as often as she chose. We were thus a good 
while in getting to the Adelphi. 

On our way upstairs, I called her attention to the sudden disappearance 
of Mrs. Crupp's pitfalls, and also to the prints of recent footsteps. We 
were both very much surprised, coming higher up, to find my outer door 
standing open (which I had shut), and to hear voices inside. 

We looked at one another, without knowing what to make of this, and 
went into the sitting-room. What was my amazement to find, of all 
people upon earth, my aunt there, and Mr. Dick ! My aunt sitting on a 
quantity of luggage, with her two birds before her, and her cat on her 
knee, like a female Robinson Crusoe, drinking tea. Mr. Dick leaning 
thoughtfully on a great kite, such as we had often been out together to 
fly, with more luggage piled about him ! 

" My dear aunt ! " cried I. " Why, what an unexpected pleasure ! " 

We cordially embraced ; and Mr. Dick and I cordially shook hands ; 
and Mrs. Crupp, who was busy making tea, and could not be too attentive, 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 351 

cordially said she had knowed well as Mr. Copperfull would have his 
heart in his mouth, when he see his dear relations. 

"Halloa!" said nay aunt to Peggotty, who quailed before her awful 
presence. " How are you ? " 

" You remember my aunt, Peggotty ? " said I. 

" Por the love of goodness, child," exclaimed my aunt, " don't call the 
woman by that South Sea Island name ! If she married and got rid of it, 
which was the best thing she could do, why don't you give her the benefit 
of the change ? What 's your name now, — P ? " said my aunt, as a 
compromise for the obnoxious appellation. 

" Barkis, ma'am," said Peggotty, with a curtsey. 

"Well! that's human," said my aunt. "It sounds less as if you 
wanted a Missionary. How d' ye do, Barkis ? I hope you 're well ? " 

Encouraged by these gracious words, and by my aunt's extending her 
hand, Barkis came forward, and took the hand, and curtseyed her acknow- 
ledgments. 

" We are older than we were, I see," said my aunt. " We have only 
met each other once before, you know. A nice business we made of it 
then ! Trot, my dear, another cup." 

I handed it dutifully to my aunt, who was in her usual inflexible state 
of figure ; and ventured a remonstrance with her on the subject of her 
sitting on a box. 

" Let me draw the sofa here, or the easy chair, aunt," said I. " Why 
should you be so uncomfortable ? " 

" Thank you, Trot," replied my aunt, " I prefer to sit upon my pro- 
perty." Here my aunt looked hard at Mrs. Crupp, and observed, " We 
needn't trouble you to wait, ma'am." 

" Shall I put a little more tea in the pot afore I go, ma'am ? " said 
Mrs. Crupp. 

" No, I thank you, ma'am," replied my aunt. 

" Would you let me fetch another pat of butter, ma'am ? " said 
Mrs. Crupp. " Or would you be persuaded to try a new-laid hegg ? or 
should I brile a rasher ? Ain't there nothing I could do for your dear 
aunt, Mr. Copperfull ? " 

" Nothing, ma'am," returned my aunt. " I shall do very well, I 
thank you." 

Mrs. Crupp, who had been incessantly smiling to express sweet temper, 
and incessantly holding her head on one side, to express a general feeble- 
ness of constitution, and incessantly rubbing her hands, to express a desire 
to be of service to all deserving objects, gradually smiled herself, one-sided 
herself, and rubbed herself, out of the room. 

" Dick ! " said my aunt. " You know what I told you about time- 
servers and wealth- worshippers ? " 

Mr. Dick — with rather a scared look, as if he had forgotten it — returned 
a hasty answer in the affirmative. 

" Mrs. Crupp is one of them," said my aunt. " Barkis, I '11 trouble 
you to look after the tea, and let me have another cup, for I don't fancy 
that woman's pouring-out ! " 

I knew my aunt sufficiently well to know that she had something of 
importance on her mind, and that there was far more matter in this 



352 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

arrival than a stranger might have supposed. I noticed how her eye lighted 
on me, when she thought my attention otherwise occupied ; and what a 
curious process of hesitation appeared to be going on within her, while 
she preserved her outward stiffness and composure. I began to reflect 
whether I had done anything to offend her ; and my conscience whispered 
me that I had not yet told her about Dora. Could it by any means be 
that, I wondered ! 

As I knew she would only speak in her own good time, I sat down near 
her, and spoke to the birds, and played with the cat, and was as easy as I 
could be. But I was very far from being really easy ; and I should still 
have been so, even if Mr. Dick, leaning over the great kite behind my 
aunt, had not taken every secret opportunity of shaking his head darkly at 
me, and pointing at her. 

" Trot," said my aunt at last, when she had finished her tea, and care- 
fully smoothed down her dress, and wiped her lips — " you needn't go, 
Barkis ! — Trot, have you got to be firm, and self-reliant? " 

" I hope so, aunt." 

" What do you think ? " inquired Miss Betsey. 

" I think so, aunt." 

" Then why, my love," said my aunt, looking earnestly at me, " why do 
you think I prefer to sit upon this property of mine to-night ? " 

I shook my head, unable to guess. 

" Because," said my aunt, " it 's all I have. Because I 'm ruined, my 
dear ! " 

If the house, and every one of us, had tumbled out into the river 
together, I could hardly have received a greater shock. 

" Dick knows it," said my aunt, laying her hand calmly on my shoulder. 
"I am ruined, my dear Trot ! All I have in the world is in this room, 
except the cottage ; and that I have left Janet to let. Barkis, I want to get 
a bed for this gentleman to-night. To save expense, perhaps you can make 
up something -here for myself. Anything will do. It 's only for to-night. 
We '11 talk about this, more, to-morrow." 

I was roused from my amazement, and concern for her — I am sure, for 
her — by her falling on my neck, for a moment, and crying that she 
only grieved for me. In another moment, she suppressed this emotion ; 
and said with an aspect more triumphant than dejected : 

" We must meet reverses boldly, and not suffer them to frighten us, my 
dear. We must learn to act the play out. We must live misfortune 
down, Trot ! " 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



CHAPTER XXXY. 



DEPRESSION. 



As soon as I could recover my presence of mind, which quite 
deserted me in the first overpowering shock of my aunt's intelligence, I 
proposed to Mr. Dick to come round to the chandler's shop, and take pos- 
session of the bed which Mr. Peggotty had lately vacated. The chandler's 
shop being in Hungerford Market, and Hungerford Market being a very 
different place in those days, there was a low wooden colonnade before the 
door (not very unlike that before the house where the little man and woman 
used to live, in the old weather-glass), which pleased Mr. Dick mightily. 
The glory of lodging over this structure would have compensated him, I 
dare say, for many inconveniences ; but, as there were really few to bear, 
beyond the compound of flavors I have already mentioned, and perhaps 
the want of a little more elbow-room, he was perfectly charmed with his 
accommodation. Mrs. Crupp had indignantly assured him that there 
wasn't room to swing a cat there ; but, as Mr. Dick justly observed to 
me, sitting down on the foot of the bed, nursing his leg, " You know, 
Trotwood, I don't want to swing a cat. I never do swing a cat. There- 
fore, what does that signify to me!" 

I tried to ascertain whether Mr. Dick had any understanding of the 
causes of this sudden and great change in my aunt's affairs. As I might 
have expected, he had none at all. The only account he could give of it, 
was, that my aunt had said to him, the day before yesterday, " Now, Dick, 
are you really and truly the philosopher I take you for ? " That then he 
had said, Yes, he hoped so. That then my aunt had said, " Dick, I am 
ruined." That then he had said " Oh, indeed ! " That then my aunt 
had praised him highly, which he was very glad of. And that then they 
had come to me, and had had bottled porter and sandwiches on the road. 

Mr. Dick was so very complacent, sitting on the foot of the bed, nursing 
his leg, and telling me this, with his eyes wide open and a surprised smile, 
that I am sorry to say I was provoked into explaining to him that ruin 
meant distress, want, and starvation; but, I was soon bitterly reproved 
for this harshness, by seeing his face turn pale, and tears course down 
his lengthened cheeks, while he fixed upon me a look of such unutterable 
woe, that it might have softened a far harder heart than mine. I took 
infinitely greater pains to cheer him up again than I had taken to depress 
him ; and I soon understood (as I ought to have known at first) that he 
had been so confident, merely because of his faith in the wisest and most 
wonderful of women, and his unbounded reliance on my intellectual 
resources. The latter, I believe, he considered a match for any kind of 
disaster not absolutely mortal. 

"What can we do, Trotwood?" said Mr. Dick. "There's the 
Memorial — " 

A A 



354 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" To be sure there is," said I. " But all we can do just now, Mr. 
Dick, is to keep a cheerful countenance, and not let mv aunt see that we 
are thinking about it." 

He assented to this in the most earnest manner ; and implored me, if I 
should see him wandering an inch out of the right course, to recal him by- 
some of those superior methods which were always at my command. But 
I regret to state that the fright I had given him proved too much for his 
best attempts at concealment. All the evening his eyes wandered to my 
aunt's face, with an expression of the most dismal apprehension, as if he 
saw her growing thin on the spot. He was conscious of this, and put a 
constraint upon his head ; but his keeping that immovable, and sitting 
rolling his eyes like a piece of machinery, did not mend the matter at all. 
I saw him look at the loaf at supper (which happened to be a small one), 
as if nothing else stood between us and famine ; and when my aunt insisted 
on his making his customary repast, I detected him in the act of pocketing 
fragments of his bread and cheese ; I have no doubt for the purpose of 
reviving us with those savings, when we should have reached an advanced 
stage of attenuation. 

My aunt, on the other hand, was in a composed frame of mind, which 
was a lesson to all of us — to me, I am sure. She was extremely gracious 
to Peggotty, except when I inadvertently called her by that name ; and, 
strange as I knew she felt in London, appeared quite at home. She was 
to have my bed, and I was to lie in the sitting-room, to keep guard over 
her. She made a great point of being so near the river, in case of a 
conflagration; and I suppose really did find some satisfaction in that 
circumstance. 

" Trot, my dear," said my aunt, when she saw me making preparations 
for compounding her usual night-draught, " No ! " 

"Nothing, aunt?" 

" Not wine, my dear. Ale." 

" But there is wine here, aunt. And you always have it made of 
wine." 

" Keep that, in case of sickness," said my aunt. " We mustn't use it 
carelessly, Trot. Ale for me. Half a pint." 

I thought Mr. Dick would have fallen, insensible. My aunt being 
resolute, I went out and got the ale myself. As it was growing late, 
Peggotty and Mr. Dick took that opportunity of repairing to the chand- 
ler's shop together. I parted from him, poor fellow, at the corner of the 
street, with his great kite at his back, a very monument of human misery. 

My aunt was walking up and down the room when I returned, crimping 
the borders of her nightcap with her fingers. I warmed the ale and made 
the toast on the usual infallible principles. When it was ready for her, she 
was ready for it, with her nightcap on, and the skirt of her gown turned 
back on her knees. 

" My dear," said my aunt, after taking a spoonful of it j " it 's a great 
deal better than wine. Not half so bilious." 

I suppose I looked doubtful, for she added : 

" Tut, tut, child. If nothing worse than Ale happens to us, we are 
well off." 

" I should think so myself, aunt, I am sure," said I. 

" Well, then, why don't you think so ? " said my aunt. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 355 

" Because you and I are very different people," I returned. 

" Stuff and nonsense, Trot ! " replied my aunt. 

My aunt went on with a quiet enjoyment, in which there was very little 
affectation, if any ; drinking the warm ale with a teaspoon, and soaking her 
strips of toast in it. 

" Trot," said she, " I don't care for strange faces in general, but I rather 
like that Barkis of yours, do you know ! " 

" It 's better than a hundred pounds to hear you say so ! " said I. 

" It 's a most extraordinary world," observed my aunt, rubbing her nose ; 
" how that woman ever got into it with that name, is unaccountable to 
me, It would be much more easy to be born a Jackson, or something 
of that sort, one would think." 

" Perhaps she thinks so, too ; it 's not her fault," said I. 

" I suppose not," returned my aunt, rather grudging the admission ; 
" but it 's very aggravating. However, she 's Barkis now. That 's some 
comfort. Barkis is uncommonly fond of you, Trot." 

" There is nothing she would leave undone to prove it," said I. 

" Nothing, I believe," returned my aunt. " Here, the poor fool has 
been begging and praying about handing over some of her money — because 
she has got too much of it ! A simpleton ! " 

My aunt's tears of pleasure were positively trickling down into the 
warm ale. 

" She 's the most ridiculous creature that ever was born," said my 
aunt. " I knew, from the first moment when I saw her with that poor 
dear blessed baby of a mother of yours, that she was the most ridiculous 
of mortals. But there are good points in Barkis ! " 

Affecting to laugh, she got an opportunity of putting her hand to her 
eyes. Having availed herself of it, she resumed her toast and her discourse 
together. 

" Ah ! Mercy upon us ! " sighed my aunt. " I know all about it, 
Trot ! Barkis and myself had quite a gossip while you were out with 
Dick. I know all about it. I don't know where these wretched girls 
expect to go to, for my part. I wonder they don't knock out their brains 
against — against mantelpieces," said my aunt; an idea which was 
probably suggested to her by her contemplation of mine. 

" Poor Emily ! " said I. 

" Oh, don't talk to me about poor," returned my aunt. " She should 
have thought of that, before she caused so much misery ! Give me a kiss, 
Trot. I am sorry for your early experience." 

As I bent forward, she put her tumbler on my knee to detain me, 
and said : 

" Oh, Trot, Trot ! And so you fancy yourself in love ! Do you ? " 

" Pancy, aunt ! " I exclaimed, as red as I could be. " I adore her 
with my whole soul ! " 

" Dora, indeed ! " returned my aunt. " And you mean to say the 
little thing is very fascinating, I suppose ? " 

" My dear aunt," I replied, " no one can form the least idea what 
she is ! " 

" Ah ! And not silly ? " said mv aunt. 

" Silly, aunt ! " 

a a % 



356 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

I seriously believe it had never once entered my head for a single 
moment, to consider whether she was or not. I resented the idea, of 
course ; but I was in a manner struck by it, as a new one altogether. 

" Not light-headed ? " said my aunt. 

" Light-headed, aunt S " I could only repeat this daring speculation 
with the same kind of feeling with which I had repeated the preceding 
question. 

" Well, well ! " said my aunt. " I only ask. I don't depreciate her. 
Poor little couple ! And so you think you were formed for one another, 
and are to go through a party-supper-table kind of life, like two pretty 
pieces of confectionary, do you, Trot ? " 

She asked me this so kindly, and with such a gentle air, half playful 
and half sorrowful, that I was quite touched. 

" We are young and inexperienced, aunt, I know," I replied ; " and I 
dare say we say and think a good deal that is rather foolish. But we love 
one another truly, I am sure. If I thought Dora could ever love any- 
body else, or cease to love me ; or that I could ever love anybody else, or 
cease to love her ; I don't know what I should do — go out of my mind, 
I think ! " 

" Ah, Trot ! " said mv aunt, shaking her head, and smiling gravely ; 
" blind, blind, blind ! " 

" Some one that I know, Trot," my aunt pursued, after a pause, " though 
of avery pliant disposition, has an earnestness of affection in him thatreminds 
me of poor Baby. Earnestness is what that Somebody must look for, to 
sustain him and improve him, Trot. Deep, downright, faithful earnestness." 

" If you only knew the earnestness of Dora, aunt ! " I cried. 

" Oh, Trot ! " she said again ; " blind, blind ! " and without knowing 
why, I felt a vague unhappy loss or want of something overshadow me like 
a cloud. 

" However," said my aunt, " I don't want to put two young creatures 
out of conceit with themselves, or to make them unhappy ; so, though it is 
a girl and boy attachment, and girl and boy attachments very often — mind ! 
I don't say always ! — come to nothing, still we '11 be serious about it, and 
hope for a prosperous issue one of these days. There 's time enough for 
it to come to anything !" 

This was not upon the whole very comforting to a rapturous lover ; but 
I was glad to have my aunt in my confidence, and I was mindful of her 
being fatigued. So I thanked her ardently for this mark of her affection, 
and for all her other kindnesses towards me ; and after a tender good 
night, she took her nightcap into my bedroom. 

How miserable I was, when I lay down ! How I thought and thought 
about my being poor, in Mr. Spenlow's eyes ; about my not being what I 
thought I was, when I proposed to Dora ; about the chivalrous necessity 
of telling Dora what my worldly condition was, and releasing her from 
her engagement if she thought fit ; about how I should contrive to live, 
during the long term of my articles, when I was earning nothing ; about 
doing something to assist my aunt, and seeing no way of doing anything ; 
about coming down to have no money in my pocket, and to wear a shabby 
coat, and to be able to carry Dora no little presents, and to ride no 
gallant greys, and to show myself in no agreeable light ! Sordid and 
selfish as I knew it was, and as I tortured myself by knowing that it was, 



OF DAVID COPPEK-FIELD. 357 

to let my mind run on my own distress so much, I was so devoted to 
Dora that I could not help it. I knew that it was base in me not to think 
more of my aunt, and less of myself; but, so far, selfishness was in- 
separable from Dora, and I could not put Dora on one side for any 
mortal creature. How exceedingly miserable I was, that night ! 

As to sleep, I had dreams of poverty in all sorts of shapes, but T seemed 
to dream without the previous ceremony of going to sleep. Now I was 
ragged, wanting to sell Dora matches, six bundles for a halfpenny ; now I 
was at the office in a nightgown and boots, remonstrated with by Mr. 
Spenlow on appearing before the clients in that airy attire ; now I was 
hungrily picking up the crumbs that fell from old Tiffey's daily biscuit, 
regularly eaten when Saint Paul's struck one ; now I was hopelessly 
endeavouring to get a license to marry Dora, having nothing but one of 
Uriah Heep's gloves to offer in exchange, which the whole Commons re- 
jected ; and still, more or less conscious of my own room, I was always 
tossing about like a distressed ship in a sea of bed-clothes. 

My aunt was restless, too, for I frequently heard her walking to and 
fro. Two or three times in the course of the night, attired in a long 
flannel wrapper in which she looked seven feet high, she appeared, like a 
disturbed ghost, in my room, and came to the side of the sofa on which I 
lay. On the first occasion I started up in alarm, to learn that she inferred 
from a particular light in the sky, that Westminster Abbey was on fire ; 
and to be consulted in reference to the probability of its igniting Bucking- 
ham Street, in case the wind changed. Lying still, after that, I found that 
she sat down near me, whispering to herself " Poor boy ! " And then it 
made me twenty times more wretched, to know how unselfishly mindful 
she was of me, and how selfishly mindful I was of myself. 

It was difficult to believe that a night so long to me, could be short to 
anybody else. This consideration set me thinking and thinking of an 
imaginary party where people were dancing the hours away, until that 
became a dream too, and I heard the music incessantly playing one tune, 
and saw Dora incessantly dancing one dance, without taking the least 
notice of me. The man who had been playing the harp all night, was 
trying in vain to cover it with an ordinary sized nightcap, when I awoke ; 
or I should rather say, when I left off trying to go to sleep, and saw the 
sun shining in through the window at last. 

There was an old Eoman bath in those days at the bottom of one of the 
streets out of the Strand — it may be there still — in which I have had 
many a cold plunge. Dressing myself as quietly as I could, and leaving 
Peggotty to look after my aunt, I tumbled head foremost into it, and then 
went for a walk to Hampstead. I had a hope that this brisk treatment 
might freshen my wits a little ; and I think it did them good, for I soon 
came to the conclusion that the first step I ought to take was, to try 
if my articles could be cancelled and the premium recovered. I got 
some breakfast on the Heath, and walked back to Doctors' Commons, 
along the watered roads and through a pleasant smell of summer flowers, 
growing in gardens and carried into town on hucksters' heads, intent on 
this first effort to meet our altered circumstances. 

I arrived at the office so soon, after all, that I had half an hour's loitering 
about the Commons, before old Tiffey, who was always first, appeared with 
his key. Then I sat down in my shady corner, looking up at the sunlight 



358 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

on the opposite chimney-pots, and thinking about Dora; until Mr. Spenlow 
came in, crisp and curly. 

" How are you, Copperfleld? " said he. " Fine morning ! " 

" Beautiful morning, sir," said I. " Could I say a word to you before 
you go into Court ? " 

"By all means," said he. " Come into my room." 

I followed him into his room, and he began putting on his gown, and 
touching himself up before a little glass he had, hanging inside a closet door. 

"I am sorry to say," said I, "that I have some rather disheartening 
intelligence from my aunt." 

" No ! " said he. " Dear me ! Not paralysis, I hope ? " 

" It has no reference to her health, sir," I replied. " She has met with 
some large losses. In fact, she has very little left, indeed." 

" You as-tound me, Copperfleld ! " cried Mr. Spenlow. 

I shook my head. " Indeed, sir," said I, "her affairs are so changed, 
that I wished to ask you whether it would be possible — at a sacrifice 
on our part of some portion of the premium, of course," I put in this, on 
the spur of the moment, warned by the blank expression of his face — " to 
cancel my articles ? " 

What it cost me to make this proposal, nobody knows. It was like 
asking, as a favor, to be sentenced to transportation from Dora. 

" To cancel your articles, Copperfleld ? Cancel ? " 

I explained with tolerable firmness, that I really did not know where 
my means of subsistence were to come from, unless I could earn them 
for myself. I had no fear for the future, I said — and I laid great emphasis 
on that, as if to imply that I should still be decidedly eligible for a son- 
in-law one of these days — but, for the present, I was thrown upon my 
own resources. 

"I am extremely sorry to hear this, Copperfleld," said Mr. Spenlow. 
" Extremely sorry. It is not usual to cancel articles for any such reason. 
It is not a professional course of proceeding. It is not a convenient pre- 
cedent at all. Far from it. At the same time " — 

" You are very good, sir," I murmured, anticipating a concession. 

"Not at all. Don't mention it," said Mr. Spenlow. "At the same 
time, I was going to say, if it had been my lot to have my hands unfet- 
tered — if I had not a partner — Mr. Jorkins " — 

My hopes were dashed in a moment, but I made another effort. 

" Do you think, sir," said I, " if I were to mention it to Mr. Jorkins — " 

Mr. Spenlow shook his head discouragingly. " Heaven forbid, Copper- 
field," he replied, "that I should do any man an injustice; still less, 
Mr. Jorkins. But I know my partner, Copperfleld. Mr. Jorkins is not 
a man to respond to a proposition of this peculiar nature. Mr. Jorkins 
is very difficult to move from the beaten track. You know what he is ! " 

I am sure I knew nothing about him, except that he had originally been 
alone in the business, and now lived by himself in a house near Montagu 
Square, which was fearfully in want of painting ; that he came very late of 
a day, and went away very early ; that he never appeared to be consulted 
about anything; and that he had a dingy little black-hole of his own up-stairs, 
where no business was ever done, and where there was a yellow old 
cartridge-paper pad upon his desk, unsoiled by ink, and reported to be 
twenty years of age. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 359 

" Would you object to my mentioning it to him, sir ? " I asked. 

" By no means," said Mr. Spenlow. " But I have some experience 
of Mr. Jorkins, Copperfield. I wish it were otherwise, for I should be 
happy to meet your views in any respect. I cannot have the least objection 
to your mentioning it to Mr. Jorkins, Copperfield, if you think it worth 
while." 

Availing myself of this permission, which was given with a warm shake 
of the hand, I sat thinking about Dora, and looking at the sunlight stealing 
from the chimney-pots down the wall of the opposite house, until 
Mr. Jorkins came. I then went up to Mr. Jorkins's room, and evidently 
astonished Mr. Jorkins very much by making my appearance there. 

" Come in, Mr. Copperfield," said Mr. Jorkins. " Come in ! " 

I went in, and sat down ; and stated my case to Mr. Jorkins pretty 
much as I had stated it to Mr. Spenlow. Mr. Jorkins was not by any 
means the awful creature one might have expected, but a large, mild, smooth- 
faced man of sixty, who took so much snuff that there was a tradition in 
the Commons that he lived principally on that stimulant, having little 
room in his system for any other article of diet. 

" You have mentioned this to Mr. Spenlow, I suppose ? " said Mr. 
Jorkins ; when he had heard me, very restlessly, to an end. 

I answered Yes, and told him that Mr. Spenlow had introduced 
his name. 

" He said I should object? " asked Mr. Jorkins. 

I was obliged to admit that Mr. Spenlow had considered it probable. 

" I am sorry to say, Mr. Copperfield, I can't advance your object," 
said Mr. Jorkins, nervously. " The fact is — but I have an appointment 
at the Bank, if you '11 have the goodness to excuse me." 

With that he rose in a great hurry, and was going out of the room, 
when I made bold to say that I feared, then, there was no way of arrang- 
ing the matter ? 

" No ! " said Mr. Jorkins, stopping at the door to shake his head. 
"Oh, no ! I object, you know," which he said very rapidly, and went out. 
" You must be aware, Mr. Copperfield," he added, looking restlessly in at 
the door again, " if Mr. Spenlow objects " 

" Personally, he does not object, sir," said I. 

" Oh ! Personally ! " repeated Mr. Jorkins, in an impatient manner. 
"I assure you there's an objection, Mr. Copperfield. Hopeless! What 
you wish to be done, can't be done. I — I really have got an appoint- 
ment at the Bank." With that he fairly ran away ; and to the best of my 
knowledge, it was three days before he showed himself in the Commons 
again. 

Being very anxious to leave no stone unturned, I waited until Mr. 
Spenlow came in, and then described what had passed ; giving him to 
understand that I was not hopeless of his being able to soften the adaman- 
tine Jorkins, if he would undertake that task. 

"Copperfield," returned Mr. Spenlow, with a sagacious smile, "you 
have not known my partner, Mr. Jorkins, as long as I have. Nothing is 
farther from my thoughts than to attribute any degree of artifice to Mr. 
Jorkins. But Mr. Jorkins has a way of stating his objections which often 
deceives people. No, Copperfield ! " shaking his head. " Mr. Jorkins is 
not to be moved, believe me!" 



360 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

I was completely bewildered between Mr. Spenlow and Mr. Jorkins, as 
to which of them really was the objecting partner ; but I saw with suffi- 
cient clearness that there was obduracy somewhere in the firm, and that 
the recovery of my aunt's thousand pounds was out of the question. In 
a state of despondency, which 1 remember with anything but satisfaction, 
for I know it still had too much reference to myself (though always in 
connexion with Dora), I left the office, and went homeward. 

I was trying to familiarise my mind with the worst, and to present to 
myself the arrangements we should have to make for the future in their 
sternest aspect, when a hackney chariot coming after me, and stopping at 
my very feet, occasioned me to look up. A fair hand was stretched forth 
to me from the window ; and the face I had never seen without a feeling of 
serenity and happiness, from the moment when it first turned back on the 
old oak staircase with the great broad balustrade, and when I associated 
its softened beauty with the stained glass window in the church, was 
smiling on me. 

" Agnes ! " I joyfully exclaimed. " Oh, my dear Agnes, of all people 
in the world, what a pleasure to see you ! " 

" Is it, indeed ? " she said, in her cordial voice. 

" I want to talk to you so much ! " said I. " It 's such a lightening of 
my heart, only to look at you ! If I had had a conjuror's cap, there is no 
one I should have wished for but you ! " 

" What ? " returned Agnes. 

" Well ! perhaps Dora, first," I admitted, with a blush. 

" Certainly, Dora first, I hope," said Agnes, laughing. 

" But you next ! " said I. " Where are you going ? " 

She was going to my rooms to see my aunt. The day being very fine, 
she was glad to come out of the chariot, which smelt (I had my head in it 
all this time) like a stable put under a cucumber-frame. I dismissed the 
coachman, and she took my arm, and we walked on together. She was 
like Hope embodied, to me. How different I felt in one short minute, 
having Agnes at my side ! 

My aunt had written her one of the odd, abrupt notes — very little 
longer than a Bank note — to which her epistolary efforts were usually 
limited. She had stated therein that she had fallen into adversity, and 
was leaving Dover for good, but had quite made up her mind to it, and 
was so well that nobody need be uncomfortable about her. Agnes had 
come to London to see my aunt, between whom and herself there had 
been a mutual liking these many years : indeed, it dated from the time of 
my taking up my residence in Mr. Wickfieid's house. She was not alone, 
she said. Her papa was with her — and Uriah Heep. 

"And now they are partners," said I. " Confound him ! " 

" Yes," said Agnes. " They have some business here ; and I took 
advantage of their coming, to come too. You must not think my visit all 
friendly and disinterested, Trotwood, for — I am afraid I may be cruelly 
prejudiced — I do not like to let papa go away alone, with him." 

" Does he exercise the same influence over Mr. Wickfield still, Agnes? " 

Agnes shook her head. " There is such a change at home," said she, 
"that you would scarcely know the dear old house. They live with 
us now." 

"They?" said I. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 861 

"Mr. Heep and his mother. He sleeps in your old room," said Agnes, 
looking np into my face. 

" I wish I had the ordering of his dreams/' said I. " He wouldn't 
sleep there long." 

" I keep my own little room," said Agnes, "where I used to learn my 
lessons. How the time goes ! You remember ? The little panelled room 
that opens from the drawing-room ? " 

" Eemember, Agnes ? When I saw you, for the first time, coming out 
at the door, with your quaint little basket of keys hanging at your side ? " 

" It is just the same," said Agnes, smiling. " I am glad you think of 
it so pleasantly. We were very happy." 

"We were, indeed," said I. 

" I keep that room to myself still ; but I cannot always desert Mrs. 
Heep, you know. And so," said Agnes quietly, "I feel obliged to 
bear her company, when I might prefer to be alone. But I have no 
other reason to complain of her. If she tires me, sometimes, by her 
praises of her son, it is only natural in a mother. He is a very good son 
to her." 

I looked at Agnes when she said these words, without detecting in her 
any consciousness of Uriah's design. Her mild but earnest eyes met 
mine with their own beautiful frankness, and there was no change in her 
gentle face. 

" The chief evil of their presence in the house," said Agnes, " is that I 
cannot be as near papa as I could wish — Uriah Heep being so much 
between us — and cannot watch over him, if that is not too bold a thing 
to say, as closely as I would. But, if any fraud or treachery is practising 
against him, I hope that simple love and truth will be stronger, in the 
end. I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil 
or misfortune in the world." 

A certain bright smile which I never saw on any other face, died away, 
even while I thought how good it was, and how familiar it had once 
been to me ; and she asked me, with a quick change of expression (we 
were drawing very near my street), if I knew how the reverse in my aunt's 
circumstances had been brought about. On my replying no, she had 
not told me yet, Agnes became thoughtful, and I fancied I felt her arm 
tremble in mine. 

We found my aunt alone, in a state of some excitement. A difference 
of opinion had arisen between herself and Mrs. Crupp, on an abstract 
question (the propriety of chambers being inhabited by the gentler sex) ; 
and my aunt, utterly indifferent to spasms on the part of Mrs. Crupp, 
had cut the dispute short, by informing that lady that she smelt of my 
brandy, and that she would trouble her to walk out. Both of these 
expressions Mrs. Crupp considered actionable, and had expressed her 
intention of bringing before a "British Judy" — meaning, it was supposed, 
the bulwark of our national liberties. 

My aunt, however, having had time to cool, while Peggotty was out 
showing Mr. Dick the soldiers at the Horse Guards — and being, besides, 
greatly pleased to see Agnes — rather plumed herself on the affair than 
otherwise, and received us with unimpaired good humour. When Agnes 
laid her bonnet on the table, and sat down beside her, I could not but 
think, looking on her mild eyes and her radiant forehead, how natural it 



362 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

seemed to have her there; how trustfully, although she was so young 
and inexperienced, my aunt confided in her ; how strong she was, indeed, in 
simple love and truth. 

We began to talk about my aunt's losses, and I told them what I had 
tried to do that morning. 

" Which was injudicious, Trot," said my aunt, "but well meant. You 
are a generous boy — I suppose I must say, young man, now — and I am proud 
of you, my dear. So far, so good. Now, Trot and Agnes, let us look 
the case of Betsey Trotwood in the face, and see how it stands." 

I observed Agnes turn pale, as she looked very attentively at my 
aunt. My aunt, patting her cat, looked very attentively at Agnes. 

" Betsey Trotwood," said my aunt, " who had always kept her money 
matters to herself : " — I don't mean your sister, Trot, my dear, but myself 
— had a certain property. It don't matter how much ; enough to live 
on. More ; for she had saved a little, and added to it. Betsey funded her 
property for some time, and then, by the advice of her man of business, 
laid it out on landed security. That did very well, and returned very good 
interest, till Betsey was paid off. I am talking of Betsey as if she was a 
man-of-war. Well! Then, Betsey had to look about her, for a new 
investment. She thought she was wiser, now, than her man of business, 
who was not such a good man of business by this time, as he used to be — 
I am alluding to your father, Agnes — and she took it into her head to lay 
it out for herself. So she took her pigs," said my aunt, " to a foreign 
market ; and a very bad market it turned out to be. First, she lost in the 
mining way, and then she lost in the diving way — fishing up treasure, or 
some such Tom Tidier nonsense," explained my aunt, rubbing her nose ; 
" and then she lost in the mining way again, and, last of all, to set the 
thing entirely to rights, she lost in the banking way. I don't know what 
the Bank shares were worth for a little while," said my aunt; " cent per 
cent was the lowest of it, I believe ; but the Bank was at the other end of 
the world, and tumbled into space, for what I know ; anyhow, it fell to 
pieces, and never will and never can pay sixpence ; and Betsey's sixpences 
were all there, and there's an end of them. Least said, soonest mended!" 

My aunt concluded this philosophical summary, by fixing her eyes with 
a kind of triumph on Agnes, whose color was gradually returning. 

" Dear Miss Trotwood, is that all the history?" said Agnes. 

" I hope it's enough, child," said my aunt. " If there had been more 
money to lose, it wouldn't have been all, I dare say. Betsey would have 
contrived to throw that after the rest, and make another chapter, I have 
little doubt. But, there was no more money, and there's no more story." 

Agnes had listened at first with suspended breath. Her color 
still came and went, but she breathed more freely. I thought I knew 
why. I thought she had had some fear that her unhappy father might 
be in some way to blame for what had happened. My aunt took her 
hand in hers, and laughed. 

" Is that all?" repeated my aunt. "Why, yes, that's all, except, 
' And she lived happy ever afterwards.' Perhaps I may add that of 
Betsey yet, one of these days. Now, Agnes, you have a wise head. So 
have you, Trot, in some things, though I can't compliment you always ;" 
and here my aunt shook her own at me, with an energy peculiar to 
herself. " What 's to be done ? Here 's the cottage, taking one time with 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 363 

another, will produce, say seventy pounds a-year. I think we may 
safely put it down at that. Well ! — That 's all we 've got," said my aunt ; 
with whom it was an idiosyncrasy, as it is with some horses, to stop very 
short when she appeared to be in a fair way of going on for a long 
while. 

" Then," said my aunt, after a rest, " there's Dick. He's good for a 
hundred a-year, but of course that must be expended on himself. I 
would sooner send him away, though I know I am the only person who 
appreciates him, than have him, and not spend his money on himself. 
How can Trot and I do best, upon our means ? What do you say, Agnes ?" 

" /say, aunt," I interposed, " that I must do something !" 

" Go for a soldier, do you mean ?" returned my aunt, alarmed ; " or go 
to sea ? I won't hear of it. You are to be a proctor. We 're not going 
to have any knockings on the head in this family, if you please, sir." 

I was about to explain that I was not desirous of introducing that mode 
of provision into the family, when Agnes inquired if my rooms were held 
for any long term ? 

" You come to the point, my dear," said my aunt. " They are not to 
be got rid of, for six months at least, unless they could be underlet, and 
that I don't believe. The last man died here. Five people out of six 
would die — of course — of that woman in nankeen with the flannel petticoat. 
I have a little ready money ; and I agree with you, the best thing we can 
do, is, to live the term out here, and get Dick a bed-room hard by." 

I thought it my duty to hint at the discomfort my aunt would 
sustain, from living in a continual state of guerilla warfare with Mrs. 
Crupp ; but she disposed of that objection summarily by declaring, that, 
on the first demonstration of hostilities, she was prepared to astonish 
Mrs. Crupp for the whole remainder of her natural life. 

" I have been thinking, Trotwood," said Agnes, diffidently, " that if 
you had time — " 

" I have a good deal of time, Agnes. I am always disengaged after 
four or five o'clock, and I have time early in the morning. In one way 
and another," said I, conscious of reddening a little as I thought of the 
hours and hours I had devoted to fagging about town, and to and fro 
upon the Norwood Koad, " I have abundance of time." 

" I know you would not mind," said Agnes, coming to me, and 
speaking in a low voice, so full of sweet and hopeful consideration that I 
hear it now, " the duties of a secretary." 

" Mind, my dear Agnes ? " 

" Because," continued Agnes, " Doctor Strong has acted on his 
intention of retiring, and has come to live in London ; and he asked papa, 
I know, if he could recommend him one. Don't you think he would 
rather have his favorite old pupil near him, than anybody else ? " 

" Dear Agnes ! " said I. " What should I do without you ! You are 
always my good angel. I told you so. I never think of you in any 
other light." 

Agnes answered with her pleasant laugh, that one good angel (meaning 
Dora) was enough ; and went on to remind me that the Doctor had been 
used to occupy himself in his study, early in the morning, and m the 
evening— and that probably my leisure would suit his requirements very 
well. I was scarcely more delighted with the prospect of earning my 



384 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

own bread, than with the hope of earning it under my old master ; in 
short, acting on the advice of Agnes, I sat down and wrote a letter to the 
Doctor, stating my object, and appointing to call on him next day at ten 
in the forenoon. This I addressed to Highgate — for in that place, so 
memorable to me, he lived — and went out and posted, myself, without 
losing a minute. 

Wherever Agnes was, some agreeable token of her noiseless presence 
seemed inseparable from the place. When I came back, I found my 
aunt's birds hanging, just as they had hung so long in the parlor window 
of the cottage ; and my easy chair imitating my aunt's much easier chair 
in its position at the open window ; and even the round green fan, which 
my aunt had brought away with her, screwed on to the window-sill. I 
knew who had done all this, by its seeming to have quietly done itself; 
and I should have known in a moment who had arranged my neglected 
books in the old order of my school days, even if I had supposed Agnes 
to be miles away, instead of seeing her busy with them, and smiling at the 
disorder into which they had fallen. 

My aunt 'was quite gracious on the subject of the Thames (it really did 
look very well with the sun upon it, though not like the sea before the 
cottage), but she could not relent towards the London smoke, which, she 
said, " peppered everything." A complete revolution, in which Peggotty 
bore a prominent part, was being effected in every corner of my rooms, 
in regard of this pepper • and I was looking on, thinking how little even 
Peggotty seemed to do with a good deal of bustle, and how much Agnes 
did without any bustle at all, when a knock came at the door. 

" I think," said Agnes, turning pale, " it 's papa. He promised me 
that he would come." 

I opened the door, and admitted, not only Mr. Wickfield, but Uriah 
Heep. I had not seen Mr. Wickfield for some time. I was prepared 
for a great change in him, after what I had heard from Agnes, but his 
appearance shocked me. 

It was not that he looked many years older, though still dressed with 
the old scrupulous cleanliness ; or that there was an unwholesome ruddi- 
ness upon his face ; or that his eyes were full and bloodshot ; or that there 
was a nervous trembling in his hand, the cause of which I knew, and had 
for some years seen at work. It was not that he had lost his good looks, 
or his old bearing of a gentleman — for that he had not — but the thing 
that struck me most, was, that with the evidences of his native superiority 
still upon him, he should submit himself to that crawling impersonation of 
meanness, Uriah Heep. The reversal of the two natures, in their relative 
positions, Uriah's of power and Mr. Wickfield's of dependence, was a sight 
more painful to me than I can express. If I had seen an Ape taking com- 
mand of a Man, I should hardly have thought it a more degrading spectacle. 

He appeared to be only too conscious of it himself. When he came in, 
he stood still ; and with his head bowed, as if he felt it. This was only 
for a moment ; for Agnes softly said to him, " Papa ! Here is Miss Trot- 
wood — and Trot wood, whom you have not seen for a long while ! " and 
then he approached, and constrainedly gave my aunt his hand, and shook 
hands more cordially with me. In the moment's pause I speak of, I 
saw Uriah's countenance form itself into a most ill-favored smile. Agnes 
saw it too, I think, for she shrank from him. 




\* 



L 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 365 

What my aunt saw, or did not see, I defy the science of physiognomy 
to have made out, without her own consent. I believe there never was 
anybody with such an imperturbable countenance when she chose. Her 
face might have been a dead wall on the occasion in question, for any 
light it threw upon her thoughts ; until she broke silence with her usual 
abruptness. 

"Well, Wickfield!" said my aunt; and he looked up at her for the 
first time. " I have been telling your daughter how well I have been 
disposing of my money for myself, because I couldn't trust it to you, as 
you were growing rusty in business matters. We have been taking 
counsel together, and getting on very well, all things considered. Agnes 
is worth the whole firm, in my opinion." 

" If I may umbly make the remark," said Uriah Heep, with a writhe, 
" I fully agree with Miss Betsey Trotwood, and should be only too 
appy if Miss Agnes was a partner." 

" You 're a partner yourself, you know," returned my aunt, " and that 's 
about enough for you, I expect. How do you find yourself, sir ? " 

In acknowledgment of this question, addressed to him with extraordi- 
nary curtness, Mr. Heep, uncomfortably clutching the blue bag he car- 
ried, replied that he was pretty well, he thanked my aunt, and hoped she 
was the same. 

"And you, Master — I should say, Mister Copperfield," pursued Uriah. 
" I hope I see you well ! I am rejoiced to see you, Mister Copperfield, 
even under present circumstances." I believed that ; for he seemed to 
relish, them very much. " Present circumstances is not what your friends 
would wish for you, Mister Copperfield, but it isn't money makes the 
man : it 's — I am really unequal with my umble powers to express what 
it is," said Uriah, with a fawning jerk, "but it isn't money ! " 

Here he shook hands with me: not in the common way, but standing at 
a good distance from me, and lifting my hand up and down like a pump 
handle, that he was a little afraid of. 

" And how do you think we are looking, Master Copperfield, — I should 
say, Mister? " fawned Uriah. " Don't you find Mr. Wickfield blooming, 
sir? Years don't tell much in our firm, Master Copperfield, except in 
raising up the umble, namely, mother and self — and in developing," he 
added as an after-thought, " the beautiful, namely Miss Agnes." 

He jerked himself about, after this compliment, in such an intolerable 
manner, that my aunt, who had sat looking straight at him, lost all 
patience. 

"Deuce take the man!" said my aunt, sternly, "what's he about? 
Don't be galvanic, sir ! " 

" I ask your pardon, Miss Trotwood," returned Uriah ; " I 'm aware 
you 're nervous." 

" Go along with you, sir ! " said my aunt, anything but appeased. 
*' Don't presume to say so ! I am nothing of the sort. If you 're an eel, sir, 
conduct yourself like one. If you're a man, control your limbs, sir! 
Good God ! " said my aunt, with great indignation, " I am not going to 
be serpentined and corkscrewed out of my senses ! " 

Mr. Heep was rather abashed, as most people might have been, by 
this explosion ; which derived great additional force from the indignant 
manner in which my aunt afterwards moved in her chair, and shook her 



366 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

head as if she were making snaps or bounces at him. But, he said to me 
aside in a meek voice : 

" I am well aware, Master Copperfield, that Miss Trotwood, though an 
excellent lady, has a quick temper (indeed I think I had the pleasure of 
knowing her, when I was a numble clerk, before you did, Master Copper- 
field), and it 's only natural, I am sure, that it should be made quicker by 
present circumstances. The wonder is, that it isn't much worse ! I 
only called to say that if there was anything we could do, in present cir- 
cumstances, mother or self, or Wickfield and Heep, we should be really 
glad. I may go so far ? " said Uriah, with a sickly smile at his partner. 

" Uriah Heep," said Mr. Wickfield, in a monotonous forced way, " is 
active in the business, Trotwood. What he says, I quite concur in. You 
know I had an old interest in you. Apart from that, what Uriah says 
I quite concur in ! " 

" Oh, what a reward it is," said Uriah, drawing up one leg, at the risk of 
bringing down upon himself another visitation from my aunt, " to be so 
trusted in ! But I hope I am able to do something to relieve him from 
the fatigues of business, Master Copperfield ! " 

"Uriah Heep is a great relief to me," said Mr. Wickfield, in the same 
dull voice. " It 's a load off my mind, Trotwood, to have such a partner." 

The red fox made him say all this, I knew, to exhibit him to me in the 
light he had indicated on the night when he poisoned my rest. I saw the 
same ill-favored smile upon his face again, and saw how he watched me. 

" You are not going, papa ? " said Agnes, anxiously. " Will you not 
walk back with Trotwood and me ? " 

He would have looked to Uriah, I believe, before replying, if that worthy 
had not anticipated him. 

" I am bespoke myself," said Uriah, " on business ; otherwise I should 
have been appy to have kept with my friends. But I leave my partner to 
represent the firm. Miss Agnes, ever yours ! I wish you good-day, 
Master Copperfield, and leave my umble respects for Miss Betsey Trotwood." 

With those words, he retired, kissing his great hand, and leering at us 
like a mask. 

We sat there, talking about our pleasant old Canterbury days, an hour 
or two. Mr. Wickfield, left to Agnes, soon became more like his former 
self; though there was a settled depression upon him, which he never 
shook off. For all that, he brightened ; and had an evident pleasure in 
hearing us recall the little incidents of our old life, many of which he 
remembered very well. He said it was like those times, to be alone with 
Agnes and me again ; and he wished to Heaven they had never changed. 
I am sure there was an influence in the placid face of Agnes, and in the 
very touch of her hand upon his arm, that did wonders for him. 

My aunt (who was busy nearly all this while with Peggotty, in the inner 
room) would not accompany us to the place where they were staying, but 
insisted on my going ; and I went. We dined together. After dinner, 
Agnes sat beside him, as of old, and poured out his wine. He took what 
she gave him, and no more — like a child — and we all three sat together at a 
window as the evening gathered in. When it was almost dark, he lay 
down on a sofa, Agnes pillowing his head and bending over him a little 
while ; and when she came back to the window, it was not so dark but I 
could see tears glittering in her eyes. 



OF DAVID COPPEltFIELD. 367 

I pray Heaven that I never may forget the dear girl in her love and 
truth, at that time of my life ; for if I should, I must be drawing near the 
end, and then I would desire to remember her best ! She filled my heart 
with such good resolutions, strengthened my weakness so, by her example, 
so directed — I know not how, she was too modest and gentle to advise 
me in many words — the wandering ardor and unsettled purpose within 
me, that all the little good I have done, and all the harm I have forborne, 
I solemnly believe I may refer to her. 

And how she spoke to me of Dora, sitting at the window in the dark ; 
listened to my praises of her ; praised again ; and round the little fairy- 
figure shed some glimpses of her own pure light, that made it yet more 
precious and more innocent to me ! Oh, Agnes, sister of my boyhood, 
if I had known then, what I knew long afterwards ! — 

There was a beggar in the street, when I went down ; and as I turned 
my head towards the window, thinking of her calm, seraphic eyes, he 
made me start by muttering, as if he were an echo of the morning : 

"Blind! Blind! Blind!" 



CHAPTER XXXYI. 



ENTHUSIASM. 



I began the next day with another dive into the Koman bath, and then 
started for Highgate. I was not dispirited now. I was not afraid of the 
shabby coat, and had no yearnings after gallant greys. My whole manner 
of thinking of our late misfortune was changed. What I had to do, was, 
to show my aunt that her past goodness to me had not been thrown away 
on an insensible, ungrateful object. What I had to do, was, to turn the 
painful discipline of my younger days to account, by going to work with 
a resolute and steady heart. What I had to do, was, to take my wood- 
man's axe in my hand, and clear my own way through the forest of diffi- 
culty, by cutting down the trees until I came to Dora. And I went on 
at a mighty rate, as if it could be done by walking. 

When I found myself on the familiar Highgate road, pursuing such a 
different errand from that old one of pleasure, with which it was associated, 
it seemed as if a complete change had come on my whole life. But that 
did not discourage me. With the new life, came new purpose, new inten- 
tion. Great was the labor ; priceless the reward. Dora was the reward, 
and Dora must be won. 

I got into such a transport, that I felt quite sorry my coat was not a 
little shabby already. I wanted to be cutting at those trees in the forest 
of difficulty, under circumstances that should prove my strength. I had 
a good mind to ask an old man, in wire spectacles, who was breaking 
stones upon the road, to lend me his hammer for a little while, and let me 
begin to beat a path to Dora out of granite. I stimulated myself into 
such a heat, and got so out of breath, that I felt as if I had been earning 



368 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

I don't know how much. In this state, I went into a cottage that I saw 
was to let, and examined it narrowly, — for I felt it necessary to be prac- 
tical. It would do for me and Dora admirably : with a little front garden 
for Jip to run about in, and bark at the tradespeople through the railings, 
and a capital room up-stairs for my aunt. I came out again, hotter and 
faster than ever, and dashed up to Highgate, at such a rate that I was 
there an hour too early ; and, though I had not been, should have been 
obliged to stroll about to cool myself, before I was at all presentable. 

My first care, after putting myself under this necessary course of pre- 
paration, was to find the Doctor's house. It was not in that part of 
Highgate where Mrs. Steerforth lived, but quite on the opposite side of 
the little town. "When I had made this discovery, I went back, in an 
attraction I could not resist, to a lane by Mrs. Steerforth's, and looked 
over the corner of the garden wall. His room was shut up close. The 
conservatory doors were standing open, and Rosa Dartle was walking, 
bareheaded, with a quick, impetuous step, up and down a gravel walk on 
one side of the lawn. She gave me the idea of some fierce thing, that was 
dragging the length of its chain to and fro upon a beaten track, and 
wearing its heart out. 

I came softly away from my place of observation, and avoiding that 
part of the neighbourhood, and wishing I had not gone near it, strolled 
about until it was ten o'clock. The church with the slender spire, that 
stands on the top of the hill now, was not there then to tell me the time. 
An old red-brick mansion, used as a school, was in its place ; and a fine 
old house it must have been to go to school at, as I recollect it. 

When I approached the Doctor's cottage — a pretty old place, on which 
he seemed to have expended some money, if I might judge from the 
embellishments and repairs that had the look of being just completed — 
I saw him walking in the garden at the side, gaiters and all, as if he had 
never left off walking since the days of my pupilage. He had his old 
companions about him, too ; for there were plenty of high trees in the 
neighbourhood, and too or three rooks were on the grass, looking after 
him, as if they had been written to about him by the Canterbury rooks, 
and were observing him closely in consequence. 

Knowing the utter hopelessness of attracting his attention from that 
distance, I made bold to open the gate, and walk after him, so as to meet 
him when he should turn round. When he did, and came towards me, he 
looked at me thoughtfully for a few moments, evidently without thinking 
about me at all ; and then his benevolent face expressed extraordinary plea- 
sure, and he took me by both hands. 

" Why, my dear Copperfield," said the Doctor; " you are a man ! How 
do you do ? I am delighted to see you. My dear Copperfield, how very 
much you have improved ! You are quite — yes — dear me!" 

I hoped he was well, and Mrs. Strong too. 

" Oh dear, yes ! " said the Doctor ; " Annie 's quite well, and she '11 be 
delighted to see you. You were always her favorite. She said so, 
last night, when I showed her your letter. And — yes to be sure — \ou 
recollect Mr. Jack Maldon, Copperfield? " 

" Perfectly, sir." 

" Of course," said the Doctor. " To be sure. He f s pretty well, too." 

" Has he come home, sir ? " I inquired. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 369 

" From India ? " said the Doctor. " Yes. Mr. Jack Maldon couldn't 
bear the climate, my dear. Mrs. Markleham — you have not forgotten 
Mrs. Markleham?" 

Forgotten the Old Soldier ! And in that short time ! 

" Mrs. Markleham," said the Doctor, " was quite vexed about him, 
poor thing ; so we have got him at home again ; and we have bought him 
a little Patent place, which agrees with him much better." 

I knew enough of Mr. Jack Maldon to suspect from this account that 
it was a place where there was not much to do, and which was pretty well 
paid. The Doctor, walking up and down with his hand on my shoulder, 
and his kind face turned encouragingly to mine, went on : 

" Now, my dear Copperfield, in reference to this proposal of yours. It 's 
very gratifying and agreeable to me, I am sure ; but don't you think you 
could do better ? You achieved distinction, you know, when you were 
with us. You are qualified for many good things. You have laid a 
foundation that any edifice may be raised upon ; and is it not a pity that 
you should devote the spring-time of your life to such a poor pursuit as I 
can offer ? " 

I became very glowing again, and, expressing myself in a rhapsodical 
style, I am afraid, urged my request strongly ; reminding the Doctor that 
I had already a profession. 

"Well, well," returned the Doctor, "that's true. Certainly, your 
having a profession, and being actually engaged in studying it, makes a 
difference. But, my good young friend, what 's seventy pounds a-year ? ' 

" It doubles our income, Doctor Strong," said I. 

" Dear me ! " replied the Doctor. " To think of that ! Not that I 
mean to say it 's rigidly limited to seventy pounds a-year, because I have 
always contemplated making any young friend I might thus employ, a 
present too. Undoubtedly," said the Doctor, still walking me up and 
down with his hand on my shoulder, " I have always taken an annual 
present into account." 

" My dear tutor," said I (now, really, without any nonsense), " to whom 
I owe more obligations already than I ever can acknowledge — " 

" No, no," interposed the Doctor. " Pardon me ! " 

" If you will take such time as I have, and that is my mornings and 
evenings, and can think it worth seventy pounds a-year, you will do me 
such a service as I cannot express." 

" Dear me!" said the Doctor, innocently. " To think that so little 
should go for so much ! Dear, dear ! And when you can do better, you 
will ? On your word, now ? " said the Doctor, — which he had always 
made a very grave appeal to the honor of us boys. 

" On my word, sir ! " I returned, answering in our old school manner. 

" Then be it so ! " said the Doctor, clapping me on the shoulder, and 
still keeping his hand there, as we still walked up and down. 

" And I shall be twenty times happier, sir," said I, with a little — I 
hope innocent — flattery, " if my employment is to be on the Dictionary." 

The Doctor stopped, smilingly clapped me on the shoulder again, and 
exclaimed, with a triumph most delightful to behold, as if I had penetrated 
to the profoundest depths of mortal sagacity, " My dear young friend, 
you have hit it. It is the Dictionary ! " 

B B 



370 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

How could it be anything else ! His pockets were as full of it as his 
head. It was sticking out of him in all directions. He told me that 
since his retirement from scholastic life, he had been advancing with it 
wonderfully ; and that nothing could suit him better than the proposed 
arrangements for morning and evening work, as it was his custom to walk 
about in the day-time with his considering cap on. His papers were in 
a little confusion, in consequence of Mr. Jack Maldon having lately 
proffered his occasional services as an amanuensis, and not being accus- 
tomed to that occupation ; but we should soon put right what was amiss, 
and go on swimmingly. Afterwards, when we were fairly at our work, I 
found Mr. Jack Maldon's efforts more troublesome to me than I had 
expected, as he had not confined himself to making numerous mistakes, 
but had sketched so many soldiers, and ladies' heads, over the Doctor's 
manuscript, that I often became involved in labyrinths of obscurity. 

The Doctor was quite happy in the prospect of our going to work 
together on that wonderful performance, and we settled to begin next 
morning at seven o'clock. We were to work two hours every morning, 
and two or three hours every night, except on Saturdays, when I was to 
rest. On Sundays, of course, I was to rest also, and I considered these 
very easy terms. 

Our plans being thus arranged to our mutual satisfaction, the Doctor 
took me into the house to present me to Mrs. Strong, whom we found in 
the Doctor's new study, dusting his books, — a freedom which he never 
permitted anybody else to take with those sacred favorites. 

They had postponed their breakfast on my account, and we sat down to 
table together. We had not been seated long, when I saw an approaching 
arrival in Mrs. Strong's face, before I heard any sound of it. A gentleman 
on horseback came to the gate, and, leading his horse into the little court, 
with the bridle over his arm, as if he were quite at home, tied him to a ring 
in the empty coach-house wall, and came into the breakfast parlor, whip in 
hand. It was Mr. Jack Maldon ; and Mr. Jack Maldon was not at all 
improved by India, I thought. I was in a state of ferocious virtue, how- 
ever, as to young men who were not cutting down the trees in the forest 
of difficulty ; and my impression must be received with due allowance. 

" Mr. Jack ! " said the Doctor, " Copperfield ! " 

Mr. Jack Maldon shook hands with me; but not very warmly, I 
believed ; and with an air of languid patronage, at which I secretly took 
great umbrage. But his languor altogether was quite a wonderful sight ; 
except when he addressed himself to his cousin Annie. 

"Have you breakfasted this morning, Mr. Jack? " said the Doctor. 

" I hardly ever take breakfast, sir," he replied, with his head thrown 
back in an easy chair. " I find it bores me." 

" Is there any news to-day ? " inquired the Doctor. 

" Nothing at all, sir," replied Mr. Maldon. " There 's an account 
about the people being hungry and discontented down in the North, but 
they are always being hungry and discontented somewhere." 

The Doctor looked grave, and said, as though he wished to change the 
subject, " Then there 's no news at all ; and no news, they say, is good news/' 

"There's a long statement in the papers, sir, about a murder," 
observed Mr. Maldon. " But somebody is always being murdered, and I 
didn't read it." 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 371 

A display of indifference to all the actions and passions of mankind was 
not supposed to be such a distinguished quality at that time, I think, as I 
have observed it to be considered since. I have known it very fashion- 
able indeed. I have seen it displayed with such success, that I have 
encountered some fine ladies and gentlemen who might as well have been 
born caterpillars. Perhaps it impressed me the more then, because it 
was new to me, but it certainly did not tend to exalt my opinion of, or to 
strengthen my confidence in, Mr. Jack Maldon. 

" I came out to inquire whether Annie would like to go to the opera 
to-night," said Mr. Maldon, turning to her. " It 's the last good night 
there will be, this season ; and there !s a singer there, whom she really 
ought to hear. She is perfectly exquisite. Besides which, she is so 
charmingly ugly," relapsing into languor. 

The Doctor, ever pleased with what was likely to please his young wife, 
turned to her and said : 

"You must go, Annie. You must go." 

" I would rather not," she said to the Doctor. "I prefer to remain at 
home. I would much rather remain at home." 

Without looking at her cousin, she then addressed me, and asked me 
about Agnes, and whether she should see her, and whether she was not 
likely to come that day ; and was so much disturbed, that I wondered 
how even the Doctor, buttering his toast, could be blind to what was so 
obvious. 

But he saw nothing. He told her, good-naturedly, that she was young 
and ought to be amused and entertained, and must not allow herself to 
be made dull by a dull old fellow. Moreover, he said, he wanted to hear 
her sing all the new singer's songs to him ; and how could she do that 
well, unless she went ? So the Doctor persisted in making the engage- 
ment for her, and Mr. Jack Maldon was to come back to dinner. This 
concluded, he went to his Patent place, I suppose ; but at all events went 
away on his horse, looking very idle. 

I was curious to find out next morning, whether she had been. She 
had not, but had sent into London to put her cousin oif; and had gone 
out in the afternoon to see Agnes, and had prevailed upon the Doctor to 
go with her; and they had walked home by the fields, the Doctor told me, 
the evening being delightful. I wondered then, whether she would have 
gone if Agnes had not been in town, and whether Agnes had some good 
influence over her too ! 

She did not look very happy, I thought ; but it was a good face, or a 
very false one. I often glanced at it, for she sat in the window all the 
time we were at work; and made our breakfast, which we took by 
snatches as we w r ere employed. When I left, at nine o'clock, she was 
kneeling on the ground at the Doctor's feet, putting on his shoes and 
gaiters for him. There was a softened shade upon her face, thrown from 
some green leaves overhanging the open window of the low room ; and I 
thought all the way to Doctors' Commons, of the night when I had seen it 
looking at him as he read. 

I was pretty busy now ; up at five in the morning, and home at nine or 
ten at night. But I had infinite satisfaction in being so closely engaged, 
and never walked slowly on any account, and felt enthusiastically that the 

B B 2 



372 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

more I tired myself, the more I was doing to deserve Dora. I had not 
revealed myself in my altered character to Dora yet, because she was 
coming to see Miss Mills in a few days, and I deferred all I had to tell 
her until then ; merely informing her in my letters (all our communica- 
tions were secretly forwarded through Miss Mills), that I had much to tell 
her. In the meantime, I put myself on a short allowance of bear's grease, 
wholly abandoned scented soap and lavender water, and sold off three 
waistcoats at a prodigious sacrifice, as being too luxurious for my stern 
career. 

Not satisfied with all these proceedings, but burning with impatience 
to do something more, I went to see Traddles, now lodging up behind the 
parapet of a house in Castle Street, Holborn. Mr. Dick, who had been 
with me to Highgate twice already, and had resumed his companionship 
with the Doctor, I took with me. 

I took Mr. Dick with me, because, acutely sensitive to my aunt's 
reverses, and sincerely believing that no galley-slave or convict worked as 
I did, he had begun to fret and worry himself out of spirits and appetite, 
as having nothing useful to do. In this condition, he felt more incapable 
of finishing the Memorial than ever ; and the harder he worked at it, the 
oftener that unlucky head of King Charles the First got into it. Seriously 
apprehending that his malady would increase, unless we put some innocent 
deception upon him and caused him to believe that he was useful, or 
unless we could put him in the way of being really useful (which would 
be better), I made up my mind to try if Traddles could help us. Before 
we went, I wrote Traddles a full statement of all that had happened, and 
Traddles wrote me back a capital answer, expressive of his sympathy and 
friendship. 

We found him hard at work with his inkstand and papers, refreshed by 
the sight of the flowerpot-stand and the little round table in a corner of the 
small apartment. He received us cordially, and made friends with Mr. 
Dick in a moment. Mr. Dick professed an absolute certainty of having 
seen him before, and we both said, " Very likely." 

The first subject on which I had to consult Traddles was this. — I had 
heard that many men distinguished in various pursuits had begun life 
by reporting the debates in Parliament. Traddles having mentioned news- 
papers to me, as one of his hopes, I had put the two things together, 
and told Traddles in my letter that I wished to know how I could 
qualify myself for this pursuit. Traddles now informed me, as the result 
of his inquiries, that the mere mechanical acquisition necessary, except 
in rare cases, for thorough excellence in it, that is to say, a perfect and 
entire command of the mystery of short-hand writing and reading, was 
about equal in difficulty to the mastery of six languages; and that it 
might perhaps be attained, by dint of perseverance, in the course of a 
few years. Traddles reasonably supposed that this would settle the 
business ; but I, only feeling that here indeed were a few tall trees to be 
hewn down, immediately resolved to work my way on to Dora through 
this thicket, axe in hand. 

"lam very much obliged to you, my dear Traddles ! " said I. "I '11 
begin to-morrow." 

Traddles looked astonished, as he well might ; but he had no notion as 
yet of my rapturous condition. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. OiO 

" I '11 buy a book," said I, " with a good scheme of this art in it ; I '11 
work at it at the Commons, where I haven't half enough to do ; I '11 take 
down the speeches in our court for practice — Traddles, my dear fellow, 
I '11 master it ! " 

"Dear me," said Traddles, opening his eyes, " I had no idea you were 
such a determined character, Copperfield ! " 

I don't know how he should have had, for it was new enough to me. 
I passed that off, and brought Mr. Dick on the carpet. 

" You see," said Mr. Dick, wistfully, " if I could exert myself, Mr. Trad- 
dles — if I could beat a drum — or blow anything ! " 

Poor fellow ! I have little doubt he would have preferred such an 
employment in his heart to all others. Traddles, who would not have 
smiled for the world, replied composedly : 

"But you are a very good penman, sir. You told me so, Copperfield?" 

" Excellent ! " said 1. And indeed he was. He wrote with extra- 
ordinary neatness. 

"Don't you think," said Traddles, "you could copy writings, sir, if 
I got them for you ? " 

Mr. Dick looked doubtfully at me. " Eh, Trotwood ? " 

I shook my head. Mr. Dick shook his, and sighed. " Tell him about 
the Memorial," said Mr. Dick. 

I explained to Traddles that there was a difficulty in keeping King 
Charles the First out of Mr. Dick's manuscripts ; Mr. Dick in the mean- 
while looking very deferentially and seriously at Traddles, and sucking 
his thumb. 

"But these writings, you know, that I speak of, are already drawn 
up and finished," said Traddles after a little consideration. " Mr. Dick 
has nothing to do with them. Wouldn't that make a difference, Copper- 
field ? At all events wouldn't it be well to try ? " 

This gave us new hope. Traddles and I laying our heads together 
apart, while Mr. Dick anxiously watched us from his chair, we con- 
cocted a scheme in virtue of which we got him to work next day, with 
triumphant success. 

On a table by the window in Buckingham Street, we set out the work 
Traddles procured for him — which was to make, I forget how many 
copies of a legal document about some right of way — and on another table 
we spread the last unfinished original of the great Memorial. Our 
instructions to Mr. Dick were that he should copy exactly what he had 
before him, without the least departure from the original ; and that when 
he felt it necessary to make the slightest allusion to King Charles the 
Eirst, he should fly to the Memorial. We exhorted him to be resolute in 
this, and left my aunt to observe him. My aunt reported to us, after- 
wards, that, at first, he was like a man playing the kettle-drums, and 
constantly divided his attentions between the two ; but that, finding this 
confuse and fatigue him, and having his copy there, plainly before his 
eyes, he soon sat at it in an orderly business-like manner, and postponed 
the Memorial to a more convenient time. In a word, although we took 
great care that he should have no more to do than was good for him, and 
although he did not begin with the beginning of a week, he earned by the 
following Saturday night ten shillings and nine pence ; and never, while 
I live, shall I forget his going about to all the shops in the neighbourhood 



374 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

to change this treasure into sixpences, or his bringing them to my aunt 
arranged in the form of a heart upon a waiter, with tears of joy and pride 
in his eyes. He was like one under the propitious influence of a charm, 
from the moment of his being usefully employed ; and if there were a 
happy man in the world, that Saturday night, it was the grateful creature 
who thought my aunt the most wonderful woman in existence, and me the 
most wonderful young man. 

" No starving now, Trotwood," said Mr. Dick, shaking hands with me 
in a corner. " I '11 provide for her, sir ! " and he nourished his ten fingers 
in the ah', as if they were ten banks. 

I hardly know which was the better pleased, Traddles or I. "It 
really," said Traddles, suddenly, taking a letter out of his pocket, and 
giving it to me, " put Mr. Micawber quite out of my head ! " 

The letter (Mr. Micawber never missed any possible opportunity of 
writing a letter) was addressed to me, " By the kindness of T. Traddles, 
Esquire, of the Inner Temple." It ran thus : — 

" My dear Copperfield, 

" You may possibly not be unprepared to receive the intimation 
that something has turned up. I may have mentioned to you on a former 
occasion that I was in expectation of such an event. 

" I am about to establish myself in one of the provincial towns of our 
favored island, (where the society may be described as a happy admixture 
of the agricultural and the clerical), in immediate connexion with one of 
the learned professions. Mrs. Micawber and our offspring will accompany 
me. Our ashes, at a future period, will probably be found commingled 
in the cemetery attached to a venerable pile, for which the spot to which 
I refer, has acquired a reputation, shall I say from China to Peru ? 

" In bidding adieu to the modem Babylon, where we have undergone 
many vicissitudes, I trust not ignobly, Mrs. Micawber and myself cannot 
disguise from our minds that we part, it may be for years and it may be 
for ever, with an individual linked by strong associations to the altar of 
our domestic life. If, on the eve of such a departure, you will accom- 
pany our mutual friend, Mr. Thomas Traddles, to our present abode, 
and there reciprocate the wishes natural to the occasion, you will confer 
a Boon 

" On 
" One 
"Who 
"Is 

" Ever yours, 

" Wilkins Micawber." 

I was glad to find that Mi*. Micawber had got rid of his dust and ashes, 
and that something really had turned up at last. Learning from Traddles 
that the invitation referred to the evening then wearing away, I expressed 
my readiness to do honor to it ; and we went off' together to the lodging 
which Mr. Micawber occupied as Mr. Mortimer, and which was situated 
near the top of the Gray's Inn Koad. 

The resources of this lodging were so limited, that we found the twins, 
now some eight or nine years old, reposing in a turn-up bedstead in the 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 375 

family sitting-room, where Mr. Micawber had prepared, in a wash-hand- 
stand jug, what he called " a Brew " of the agreeable beverage for which 
he was famous. I had the pleasure, on this occasion, of renewing the 
acquaintance of Master Micawber, whom I found a promising boy of 
about twelve or thirteen, very subject to that restlessness of limb which is 
not an unfrequent phenomenon in youths of his age. I also became once 
more known to his sister, Miss Micawber, in whom, as Mr. Micawber told 
us, " her mother renewed her youth, like the Phoenix." 

" My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, " yourself and Mr. Trad dies 
find us on the brink of migration, and will excuse any little discomforts 
incidental to that position." 

Glancing round as I made a suitable reply, I observed that the family 
effects were already packed, and that the amount of luggage was by no 
means overwhelming. I congratulated Mrs. Micawber on the approaching 
change. 

" My dear Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, " of your friendly 
interest in all our affairs, I am well assured. My family may consider it 
banishment, if they please ; but I am a wife and mother, and I never 
will desert Mr. Micawber." 

Traddles, appealed to, by Mrs. Micawber's eye, feelingly acquiesced. 

" That," said Mrs. Micawber, " that, at least, is my view, my dear 
Mr. Copperfield and Mr. Traddles, of the obligation which I took upon 
myself when I repeated the irrevocable words, ' I, Emma, take thee, 
Wilkins.' I read the service over with a flat-candle on the previous 
night, and the conclusion I derived from it was, that I never could 
desert Mr. Micawber. And," said Mrs. Micawber, " though it is pos- 
sible I may be mistaken in my view of the ceremony, I never will ! " 

" My dear," said Mr. Micawber, a little impatiently, " I am not 
conscious that you are expected to do any thing of the sort." 

* I am aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield," pursued Mrs. Micawber, 
" that I am now about to cast my lot among strangers ; and I am also 
aware that the various members of my family, to whom Mr. Micawber has 
written in the most gentlemanly terms, announcing that fact, have not 
taken the least notice of Mr. Micawber's communication. Indeed I may 
be superstitious," said Mrs. Micawber, " but it appears to me that 
Mr. Micawber is destined never to receive any answers whatever to the 
great majority of the communications he writes. I may augur, from the 
silence of my family, that they object to the resolution I have taken ; but 
I should not allow myself to be swerved from the path of duty, Mr. 
Copperfield, even by my papa and mama, were they still living." 

I expressed my opinion that this was going in the right direction. 

" It may be a sacrifice," said Mrs. Micawber, " to immure one's-self 
in a Cathedral town ; but surely, Mr. Copperfield, if it is a sacrifice in 
me, it is much more a sacrifice in a man of Mr. Micawber's abilities." 

" Oh ! You are going to a Cathedral town ?" said I. 

Mr. Micawber, who had been helping us all, out of the wash-hand- 
stand jug, replied : 

" To Canterbury. In fact, my dear Copperfield, I have entered into 
arrangements, by virtue of which I stand pledged and contracted to our 
friend Heep, to assist and serve him in the capacity of — and to be — his 
confidential clerk." 



376 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

I stared at Mr. Micawber, who greatly enjoyed my surprise. 

" I am bound to state to you/' he said, with an official ail', " that the 
business habits, and the prudent suggestions, of Mrs. Micawber, have in 
a great measure conduced to this result. The gauntlet, to which Mrs. 
Micawber referred upon a former occasion, being thrown down in the 
form of an advertisement, was taken up by my friend Heep, and led to a 
mutual recognition. Of my friend Heep," said Mr. Micawber, " who is a 
man of remarkable shrewdness, I desire to speak with all possible respect. 
My friend Heep has not fixed the positive remuneration at too high a 
figure, but he has made a great deal, in the way of extrication from the 
pressure of pecuniary difficulties, contingent on the value of my services ;, 
and on the value of those services I pin my faith. Such address and 
intelligence as I chance to possess," said Mr. Micawber, boastfully 
disparaging himself, with the old genteel air, " will be devoted to my 
friend Heep's service. I have already some acquaintance with the law — 
as a defendant on civil process — and I shall immediately apply myself to 
the Commentaries of one of the most eminent and remarkable of our 
English Jurists. I believe it is unnecessary to add that I allude to 
Mr. Justice Blackstone." 

These observations, and indeed the greater part of the observations made 
that evening, were interrupted by Mrs. Micawber's discovering that Master 
Micawber was sitting on his boots, or holding his head on with both arms 
as if he felt it loose, or accidentally kicking Traddles under the table, or 
shuffling his feet over one another, or producing them at distances from 
himself apparently outrageous to nature, or lying sideways with his hair 
among the wine-glasses, or developing his restlessness of limb in some 
other form incompatible with the general interests of society ; and by 
Master Micawber's receiving those discoveries in a resentful spirit. I sat 
all the while, amazed by Mr. Micawber's disclosure, and wondering what 
it meant ; until Mrs. Micawber resumed the thread of the discourse, and 
claimed my attention. 

" What I particularly request Mr. Micawber to be careful of, is," said 
Mrs. Micawber, " that he does not, my dear Mr. Copperfield, in applying 
himself to this subordinate branch of the law, place it out of his power to 
rise, ultimately, to the top of the tree. I am convinced that Mr. 
Micawber, giving his mind to a profession so adapted to his fertile 
resources, and his flow of language, must distinguish himself. Now, for 
example, Mr. Traddles," said Mrs. Micawber, assuming a profound air, 
" a Judge, or even say a Chancellor. Does an individual place himself 
beyond the pale of those preferments by entering on such an office as 
Mi*. Micawber has accepted ? " 

" My dear," observed Mr. Micawber — but glancing inquisitively at 
Traddles, too ; " we have time enough before us, for the consideration 
of those questions." 

" Micawber," she returned, " no ! Your mistake, in life is, that you do 
not look forward far enough. You are bound, injustice to your family, 
if not to yourself, to take in at a comprehensive glance the extremest point 
in the horizon to which your abilities may lead you. 

Mi\ Micawber coughed, and drank his punch with an air of exceeding 
satisfaction — still glancing at Traddles, as if he desired to have his 
opinion. 



OF DAVID COPPEEEIELD. 377 

" Why, the plain state of the case, Mrs. Micawber," said Traddles, mildly 
breaking the truth to her, " I mean the real prosaic fact, you know — " 

" Just so," said Mrs. Micawber, fC my dear Mr. Traddles, I wish to be 
as prosaic and literal as possible on a subject of so much importance." 

" — Is," said Traddles, " that this branch of the law, even if Mr. Micawber 
were a regular solicitor — " 

" Exactly so," returned Mrs. Micawber. (" Wilkins, you are squinting, 
and will not be able to get your eyes back.") 

" — Has nothing," pursued Traddles, " to do with that. Only a barrister 
is eligible for such preferments ; and Mr. Micawber could not be a bar- 
rister, without being entered at an inn of court as a student, for 
five years." 

" Do I follow you ? " said Mrs. Micawber, with her most affable air 
of business. " Do I understand, my dear Mr. Traddles, that, at the 
expiration of that period, Mr. Micawber would be eligible as a Judge 
or Chancellor ? " 

" He would be eligible" returned Traddles, with a strong emphasis on 
that word." 

"Thank you," said Mrs. Micawber. "That is quite sufficient. If 
such is the case, and Mr. Micawber forfeits no privilege by entering on 
these duties, my anxiety is set at rest. I speak," said Mrs. Micawber, 
" as a female, necessarily ; but I have always been of opinion that Mr. 
Micawber possesses what I have heard my papa call, when I lived at home, 
the judicial mind ; and I hope Mr. Micawber is now entering on a field 
Avhere that mind will develope itself, and take a commanding station." 

I quite believe that Mr. Micawber saw himself, in his judicial mind's 
eye, on the woolsack. He passed his hand complacently over his bald 
head, and said with ostentatious resignation : 

" My dear, we will not anticipate the decrees of fortune. If I am 
reserved to wear a wig, I am at least prepared, externally," in allusion to 
his baldness, "for that distinction. I do not," said Mr. Micawber, 
" regret my hair, and I may have been deprived of it for a specific purpose. 
I cannot say. It is my intention, my dear Copperfield, to educate my son 
for the Church ; I will not deny that I should be happy, on his account, to 
attain to eminence." 

" For the Church? " said I, still pondering, betweenwhiles, on Uriah Heep. 

" Yes," said Mr. Micawber. "He has a remarkable head-voice, and 
will commence as a chorister. Our residence at Canterbury, and our 
local connexion, will, no doubt, enable him to take advantage of any 
vacancy that may arise in the Cathedral corps. 

On looking at Master Micawber again, I saw that he had a certain 
expression of face, as if his voice were behind his eyebrows ; where it 
presently appeared to be, on his singing us (as an alternative between that 
and bed) " The Wood-Pecker tapping." After many compliments on this 
performance, we fell into some general conversation ; and as I was too full 
of my desperate intentions to keep my altered circumstances to myself, I 
made them known to Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. I cannot express how 
extremely delighted they both were, by the idea of my aunt's being in 
difficulties ; and how comfortable and friendly it made them. 

When we were nearly come to the last round of the punch, I addressed 
myself to Traddles, and reminded him that we must not separate, without 



378 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

wishing our friends health, happiness, and success in their new career. I 
begged Mr. Micawber to fill us bumpers, and proposed the toast in due 
form : shaking hands with him across the table, and kissing Mrs. Micawber, 
to commemorate that eventful occasion. Traddles imitated me in the 
first particular, but did not consider himself a sufficiently old friend to 
venture on the second. 

" My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, rising with one of his thumbs 
in each of his waistcoat pockets, " the companion of my youth : if I may 
be allowed the expression — and my esteemed friend Traddles : if I may be 
permitted to call him so — will allow me, on the part of Mrs. Micawber, 
myself, and our offspring, to thank them in the warmest and most uncom- 
promising terms for their good wishes. It may be expected that on the 
eve of a migration which will consign us to a perfectly new existence," 
Mr. Micawber spoke as if they were going five hundred thousand miles, 
" I should offer a few valedictory remarks to two such friends as I see 
before me. But all that I have to say in this way, I have said. Whatever 
station in society I may attain, through the medium of the learned profes- 
sion of which I am about to become an unworthy member, I shall 
endeavour not to disgrace, and Mrs. Micawber will be safe to adorn. 
Under the temporary pressure of pecuniary liabilities, contracted with a 
view to their immediate liquidation, but remaining unliquidated through 
a combination of circumstances, I have been under the necessity of 
assuming a garb from which my natural instincts recoil — I allude to 
spectacles — and possessing myself of a cognomen, to which I can establish 
no legitimate pretensions. All I have to say on that score is, that the 
cloud has passed from the dreary scene, and the God of Day is once more 
high upon the mountain tops. On Monday next, on the arrival of the 
four o'clock afternoon coach at Canterbury, my foot will be on my native 
heath — my name, Micawber ! " 

Mr. Micawber resumed his seat on the close of these remarks, and drank 
two glasses of punch in grave succession. He then said with much 
solemnity : 

" One thing more I have to do, before this separation is complete, and 
that is to perform an act of justice. My friend Mr. Thomas Traddles 
has, on two several occasions, ' put his name,' if I may use a common 
expression, to bills of exchange for my accommodation. On the first 
occasion Mr. Thomas Traddles was left — let me say, in short, in the lurch. 
The fulfilment of the second has not yet arrived. The amount of the first 
obligation," here Mr. Micawber carefully referred to papers, "was, I 
believe, twenty-three, four, nine and a half; of the second, according to 
my entry of that transaction, eighteen, six, two. These sums, united, 
make a total, if my calculation is correct, amounting to forty-one, ten, eleven 
and a half. My friend Copperfield will perhaps do me the favor to check 
that total ? " 

I did so and found it correct. 

" To leave this metropolis," said Mr. Micawber, " and my friend Mr. 
Thomas Traddles, without acquitting myself of the pecuniary part of this 
obligation, would weigh upon my mind to an insupportable extent. I 
have, therefore, prepared for my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles, and I now 
hold in my hand, a document, which accomplishes the desired object. I 
beg to hand to my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles my I. 0. U. for forty-one, 







V v 






OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 379 

ten, eleven and a half; and lam happy to recover my moral dignity, and 
to know that I can once more walk erect before my fellow man ! " 

With this introduction (which greatly affected him), Mr. Micawber 
placed his I. 0. U. in the hands of Traddles, and said he wished him well 
in every relation of life. I am persuaded, not only that this was quite the 
same to Mr. Micawber as paying the money, but that Traddles himself 
hardly knew the difference until he had had time to think about it. 

Mr. Micawber walked so erect before his fellow man, on the strength of 
this virtuous action, that his chest looked half as broad again when he 
lighted us down stairs. We parted with great heartiness on both sides ; 
and when I had seen Traddles to his own door, and was going home alone, 
I thought, among the other odd and contradictory things I mused upon, 
that, slippery as Mr. Micawber was, I was probably indebted to some com- 
passionate recollection he retained of me as his boy-lodger, for never having 
been asked by him for money. I certainly should not have had the. moral 
courage to refuse it; and I have no doubt he knew that (to his credit be 
it written), quite as well as I did. 



CHAPTER XXXYII. 

A LITTLE COLD WATER. 



My new life had lasted for more than a week, and I was stronger than ever 
in those tremendous practical resolutions that I felt the crisis required. I 
continued to walk extremely fast, and to have a general idea that I was 
getting on. I made it a rule to take as much out of myself as I possibly 
could, in my way of doing everything to which I applied my energies. I 
made a perfect victim of myself. I even entertained some idea of putting 
myself on a vegetable diet, vaguely conceiving that, in becoming a gramini- 
vorous animal, I should sacrifice to Dora. 

As yet, little Dora was quite unconscious of my desperate firmness, 
otherwise than as my letters darkly shadowed it forth. But, another 
Saturday came, and on that Saturday evening she was to be at Miss 
Mills's ; and when Mr. Mills had gone to his whist-club (telegraphed to me 
in the street, by a bird-cage in the drawing-room middle window), I was to 
go there to tea. 

By this time, we were quite settled down in Buckingham Street, where 
Mr. Dick continued his copying in a state of absolute felicity. My aunt 
had obtained a signal victory over Mrs. Crupp, by paying her off, throw- 
ing the first pitcher she planted on the stairs out of window, and protecting 
in person, up and down the staircase, a supernumerary whom she engaged 
from the outer world. These vigorous measures struck such terror to 
the breast of Mrs. Crupp, that she subsided into her own kitchen, under 
the impression that my aunt was mad. My aunt being supremely indif- 
ferent to Mrs. Crupp's opinion and everybody else's, and rather favoring 
than discouraging the idea, Mrs. Crupp, of late the bold, became within a 



380 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

few days so faint-hearted, that rather than encounter my aunt upon the 
staircase, she would endeavour to hide her portly form behind doors — 
leaving visible, however, a wide margin of flannel petticoat — or would 
shrink into dark corners. This gave my aunt such unspeakable satisfac- 
tion, that I believe she took a delight in prowling up and down, with her 
bonnet insanely perched on the top of her head, at times when Mrs. Crupp 
was likely to be in the way. 

My aunt, being uncommonly neat and ingenious, made so many little 
improvements in our domestic arrangements, that I seemed to be richer 
instead of poorer. Among the rest, she converted the pantry into a 
dressing-room for me ; and purchased and embellished a bedstead for my 
occupation, which looked as like a bookcase in the daytime, as a bedstead 
could. I was the object of her constant solicitude ; and my poor mother 
herself could not have loved me better, or studied more how to make me 
happy. 

Peggotty had considered herself highly privileged in being allowed to 
participate in these labors ; and, although she still retained something of 
her old sentiment of awe in reference to my aunt, had received so many 
marks of encouragement and confidence, that they were the best friends 
possible. But the time had now come (I am speaking of the Saturday 
when I was to take tea at Miss Mills's) when it was necessary for her to 
return home, and enter on the discharge of the duties she had undertaken 
in behalf of Ham. " So good bye, Barkis," said my aunt, " and take care 
of yourself ! I am sure I never thought I could be sorry to lose you ! " 

I took Peggotty to the coach-office, and saw her off. She cried at 
parting, and confided her brother to my friendship as Ham had done. We 
liad heard nothing of him since he went away, that sunny afternoon. 

" And now, my own dear Davy," said Peggotty, "if, while you're a 
prentice, you should want any money to spend ; or if, when you 're out of 
your time, my dear, you should want any to set you up (and you must do 
one or other, or both, my darling) ; who has such a good right to ask 
leave to lend it you, as my sweet girl's own old stupid me ! " 

I was not so savagely independent as to say anything in reply, but that 
if ever I borrowed money of anyone, I would borrow it of her. Next to 
accepting a large sum on the spot, I believe this gave Peggotty more com- 
fort than anything I could have done. 

" And, my dear ! " whispered Peggotty, " tell the pretty little angel 
that I should so have liked to see her, only for a minute ! And tell her 
that before she marries my boy, I '11 come and make your house so beau- 
tiful for you, if you '11 let me ! " 

I declared that nobody else should touch it ; and this gave Peggotty 
such delight that she went away in good spirits. 

I fatigued myself as much as I possibly could in the Commons all daj*, 
by a variety of devices, and at the appointed time in the evening repaired 
to Mr. Mills's street. Mr. Mills, who was a terrible fellow to fall asleep 
after dinner, had not yet gone out, and there was no birdcage in the middle 
window. 

He kept me waiting so long, that I fervently hoped the Club would fine 
him for being late. At last he came out ; and then I saw my own Dora 
hang up the birdcage, and peep into the balcony to look for me, and run 
in again when she saw I was there, while Jip remained behind, to bark 



OF DAVID COPPE11FIELD. 381 

injuriously at an immense butcher's dog in the street, who could have 
taken him like a pill. 

Dora came to the drawing-room door to meet me; and Jip came 
scrambling out, tumbling over his own growls, under the impression 
that I was a Bandit ; and we all three went in, as happy and loving as 
could be. I soon carried desolation into the bosom of our joys — not that 
I meant to do it, but that I was so full of the subject — by asking Dora, 
without the smallest preparation, if she could love a beggar ? 

My pretty, little, startled Dora ! Her only association with the word 
was a yellow face and a nightcap, or a pair of crutches, or a wooden leg, 
or a dog with a decanter-stand in his mouth, or something of that kind ; 
and she stared at me with the most delightful wonder. 

" How can you ask me anything so foolish ! " pouted Dora. " Love a 
beggar ! " 

" Dora, my own dearest ! " said I. "Jam a beggar ! " 

" How can you be such a silly thing," replied Dora, slapping my hand, 
" as to sit there, telling such stories ? I '11 make Jip bite you ! " 

Her childish way was the most delicious way in the world to me, but it 
was necessary to be explicit, and I solemnly repeated : 

" Dora, my own life, I am your ruined David ! " 

" I declare I '11 make Jip bite you ! " said Dora, shaking her curls, " if 
you are so ridiculous." 

But I looked so serious, that Dora left off shaking her curls, and laid her 
trembling little hand upon my shoulder, and first looked scared and anxious, 
then began to cry. That was dreadful. I fell upon my knees before the 
sofa, caressing her, and imploring her not to rend my heart ; but, for some 
time, poor little Dora did nothing but exclaim Oh dear ! oh dear ! 
And oh, she was so frightened ! And where was Julia Mills ! And oh, take 
her to Julia Mills, and go away, please ! until I was almost beside myself. 

At last, after an agony of supplication and protestation, I got Dora to 
look at me, with a horrified expression of face, which I gradually soothed 
until it was only loving, and her soft, pretty cheek was lying against mine. 
Then I told her, with my arms clasped round her, how I loved her, so 
dearly, and so dearly ; how I felt it right to offer to release her from her 
engagement, because now I was poor ; how I never could bear it, or recover 
it, if I lost her ; how I had no fears of poverty, if she had none, my arm 
being nerved and my heart inspired by her ; how I was already working 
with a courage such as none but lovers knew ; how I had begun to be 
practical, and to look into the future ; how a crust well earned was sweeter 
far than a feast inherited ; and much more to the same purpose, which I 
delivered in a burst of passionate eloquence quite surprising to myself, 
though I had been thinking about it, day and night, ever since my aunt 
had astonished me. 

" Is your heart mine still, dear Dora ? " said I, rapturously, for I knew 
by her clinging to me that it was. 

" Oh, yes ! " cried Dora. " Oh, yes, it 's all yours. Oh, don't be 
dreadful!*" 

/ dreadful ! To Dora ! 

" Don't talk about being poor, and working hard ! " said Dora, nestling 
closer to me. " Oh, don't, don't ! " 

" My dearest love," said I, " the crust well-earned — " 



382 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Oil, yes ; but I don't want to hear any more about crusts ! " said Dora. 
"And Jip must have a mutton-chop every-day at twelve, or he '11 die ! " 

I was charmed with her childish, winning way. I fondly explained to 
Dora that Jip should have his mutton-chop with his accustomed regularity. 
I drew a picture of our frugal home, made independent by my labor — 
sketching-in the little house I had seen at Highgate, and my aunt in her 
room up-stairs. 

"lam not dreadful now, Dora ? " said I, tenderly. 

" Oh, no, no ! " cried Dora. " But I hope your aunt will keep in her 
own room a good deal ! And I hope she 's not a scolding old thing ! " 

If it were possible for me to love Dora more than ever, I am sure I did. 
But I felt she was a little impracticable. It damped my new-born ardor, to 
find that ardor so difficult of communication to her. I made another 
trial. When she was quite herself again, and was curling Jip's ears, as he 
lay upon her lap, I became grave, and said : 

" My own ! May I mention something? " 

" Oh, please don't be practical!" said. Dora,, coaxingly. "Because it 
frightens me so ! " 

" Sweet heart ! " I returned ; " there is nothing to alarm you in all 
this. I want you to think of it quite differently. I want to make it nerve 
you, and inspire you, Dora ! " 

" Oh, but that 's so shocking ! " cried Dora. 

" My love, no. Perseverance and strength of character will enable us 
to bear much worse things." 

" But I haven't got any strength at all," said Dora, shaking her curls. 
" Have I, Jip ? Oh, do kiss Jip, and be agreeable ! " 

It was impossible to resist kissing Jip, when she held him up to me for 
that purpose, putting her own bright, rosy little mouth into kissing form, 
as she directed the operation, which she insisted should be performed 
symmetrically, on the centre of his nose. I did as she bade me — rewarding 
myself afterwards for my obedience — and she charmed me out of my 
graver character for I don't know how long. 

" But, Dora, my beloved ! " said I, at last resuming it ; "I was going 
to mention something." 

The Judge of the Prerogative Court might have fallen in love with her, 
to see her fold her little hands and hold them up, begging and praying me 
not to be dreadful any more. 

" Indeed I am not going to be, my darling ! " I assured her. "But, 
Dora, my love, if you will sometimes think, — not despondingly, you know ; 
far from that ! — but if you will sometimes think — just to encourage your- 
self — that you are engaged to a poor man — " 

" Don't,' don't ! Pray don't ! " cried Dora. " It 's so very dreadful ! " 

" My soul, not at all ! " said I, cheerfully. " If you will sometimes 
think of that, and look about now and then at your papa's housekeeping, 
and endeavour to acquire a little habit— of accounts, for instance — " 

Poor little Dora received this suggestion with something that was half 
a sob and half a scream. 

« — it w iH be so useful to us afterwards," I went on. "And if you 
would promise me to read a little— a little Cookery Book that I would 
send you, it would be so excellent for both of us. For our path in life, 
my Dora," said I, warming with the subject, "is stony and rugged now, 



OP PA.VID COPPERFIELD. 383 

and it rests with us to smooth it. We must fight our way onward. We 
must be brave. There are obstacles to be met, and we must meet, and 
crush them ! " 

I was going on at a great rate, with a clenched hand, and a most 
enthusiastic countenance ; but it was quite unnecessary to proceed. I had 
said enough. I had done it again. Oh, she was so frightened ! Oh, 
where was Julia Mills ! Oh, take her to Julia Mills, and go away, 
please ! So that, in short, I was quite distracted, and raved about the 
drawing-room. 

I thought I had killed her, this time. I sprinkled water on her face. 
I went down on my knees. I plucked at my hair. I denounced myself as 
a remorseless brute and a ruthless beast. I implored her forgiveness. I 
besought her to look up. I ravaged Miss Mills's work-box for a smelling^ 
bottle, and in my agony of mind applied an ivory needle-case instead, and 
dropped all the needles over Dora. I shook my fists at Jip, who was as frantic 
as myself. I did every wild extravagance that could be done, and was a 
long way beyond the end of my wits when Miss Mills came into the room. 

" Who has done this ! " exclaimed Miss Mills, succouring her friend. 

I replied, " 7, Miss Mills ! 7 have done it ! Behold the destroyer ! " 
— or words to that effect — and hid my face from the light, in the 
sofa cushion. 

At first Miss Mills thought it was a quarrel, and that we were verging 
on the Desert of Sahara ; but she soon found out how matters stood, for 
my dear affectionate little Dora, embracing her, began exclaiming that I 
was " a poor laborer ;" and then cried for me, and embraced me, and asked 
me would I let her give me all her money to keep, and then fell on Miss 
Mills's neck, sobbing as if her tender heart were broken. 

Miss Mills must have been born to be a blessing to us. She ascertained 
from me in a few words what it was all about, comforted Dora, and 
gradually convinced her that I was not a laborer — from my manner of 
stating the case I believe Dora concluded that I was a navigator, and went 
balancing myself up and down a plank all day with a wheelbarrow — and 
so brought us together in peace. When we were quite composed, and 
Dora had gone up-stairs to put some rose-water to her eyes, Miss Mills 
rang for tea. In the ensuing interval, I told Miss Mills that she was 
evermore my friend, and that my heart must cease to vibrate ere I could 
forget her sympathy. 

I then expounded to Miss Mills what I had endeavoured, so very 
unsuccessfully, to expound to Dora. Miss Mills replied, on general prin- 
ciples, that the Cottage of content was better than the Palace of cold 
splendour, and that where love was, all was. 

I said to Miss Mills that this was very true, and who should know it 
better than I, who loved Dora with a love that never mortal had expe- 
rienced yet. But on Miss Mills observing, with despondency, that it were 
well indeed for some hearts if this were so, I explained that I begged 
leave to restrict the observation to mortals of the masculine gender. 

I then put it to Miss Mills, to say whether she considered that there 
was or was not any practical merit in the suggestion I had been anxious 
to make, concerning the accounts, the housekeeping, and the Cookery Book? 

Miss Mills, after some consideration, thus replied : 

" Mr. Copperfield, I will be plain with you. Mental suffering and trial 



384 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

supply, in some natures, the place of years, and I will be as plain with 
you as if I were a Lady Abbess. No. The suggestion is not appropriate 
to our Dora. Our dearest Dora is a favorite child of nature. She is a 
thing of light, and airiness, and joy. I am free to confess that if it could 
be done, it might be well, but — " And Miss Mills shook her head. 

I was encouraged by this closing admission on the part of Miss Mills 
to ask her, whether, for Dora's sake, if she had any opportunity of luring 
her attention to such preparations for an earnest life, she would avail 
herself of it ? Miss Mills replied in the affirmative so readily, that I 
further asked her if she would take charge of the Cookery Book ; and, if 
she ever could insinuate it upon Dora's acceptance, without frightening 
her, undertake to do me that crowning service. Miss Mills accepted this 
trust, too ; but was not sanguine. 

And Dora returned, looking such a lovely little creature, that I really 
doubted whether she ought to be troubled with anything so ordinary. 
And she loved me so much, and was so captivating, (particularly when she 
made Jip stand on his hind legs for toast, and when she pretended to 
hold that nose of his against the hot tea-pot for punishment because he 
wouldn't), that I felt like a sort of Monster who had got into a Fairy's 
bower, when I thought of having frightened her, and made her cry. 

After tea we had the guitar ; and Dora sang those same dear old 
French songs about the impossibility of ever on any account leaving off 
dancing, La ra la, La ra la, until I felt a much greater Monster than 
before. 

We had only one check to our pleasure, and that happened a little 
while before I took my leave, when, Miss Mills chancing to make some 
allusion to to-morrow morning, I unluckily let out that being obliged to 
exert myself now, I got up at five o'clock. Whether Dora had any idea 
that I was a Private Watchman, I am unable to say ; but it made a great 
impression on her, and she neither played nor sang any more. 

It was still on her mind when I bade her adieu ; and she said to me, in 
her pretty coaxing way — as if I were a doll, I used to think ! 

" Now don't get up at five o'clock, you naughty boy. It 's so non- 
sensical ! " 

" My love," said I, " I have work to do." 

" But don't do it ! " returned Dora. " Why should you ? " 

It was impossible to say to that sweet little surprised face, otherwise 
than lightly and playfully, that we must work, to live. 

" Oh ! How ridiculous ! " cried Dora. 

" How shall we live without, Dora? " said I. 

" How ? Any how ! " said Dora. 

She seemed to think she had quite settled the question, and gave me 
such a triumphant little kiss, direct from her innocent heart, that I would 
hardly have put her out of conceit with her answer, for a fortune. 

Well ! I loved her, and I went on loving her, most absorbingly, entirely, 
and completely. But going on, too, working pretty hard, and busily 
keeping red-hot all the irons I now had in the nre, I would sit sometimes 
of a night, opposite my aunt, thinking how I had frightened Dora that 
time, and how I could best make my way with a guitar-case through the 
forest of difficulty, until I used to fancy that my head was turning quite 
grey. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 385 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP. 

I did not allow my resolution, with respect to the Parliamentary 
Debates, to cool. It was one of the irons I began to heat immediately, 
and one of the irons I kept hot, and hammered at, with a perseverance I 
may honestly admire. I bought an approved scheme of the noble art and 
mystery of stenography (which cost me ten and sixpence) ; and plunged 
into a sea of perplexity that brought me, in a few weeks, to the confines 
of distraction. The changes that were rung upon dots, which in such a 
position meant such a thing, and in such another position something else, 
entirely different ; the wonderful vagaries that were played by circles ; the 
unaccountable consequences that resulted from marks like flies' legs ; the 
tremendous effects of a curve in a wrong place ; not only troubled my 
waking hours, but reappeared before me in my sleep. When I had 
groped my way, blindly, through these difficulties, and had mastered the 
alphabet, which was an Egyptian Temple in itself, there then appeared a 
procession of new horrors, called arbitrary characters ; the most despotic 
characters I have ever known ; who insisted, for instance, that a thing like 
the beginning of a cobweb, meant expectation, and that a pen and ink 
sky-rocket stood for disadvantageous. When I had fixed these wretches in 
my mind, I found that they had driven everything else out of it ; then, 
beginning again, I forgot them ; while I was picking them up, I dropped 
the other fragments of the system ; in short, it was almost heart-breaking. 

It might have been quite heart-breaking, but for Dora, who was the 
stay and anchor of my tempest-driven bark. Every scratch in the scheme 
was a gnarled oak in the forest of difficulty, and I went on cutting them 
■down, one after another, with such vigour, that in three or four months 
I was in a condition to make an experiment on one of our crack speakers 
in the Commons. Shall I ever forget how the crack speaker walked off 
from me before I began, and left my imbecile pencil staggering about the 
paper as if it were in a fit ! 

This would not do, it was quite clear. I was flying too high, and 
should never get on, so. I resorted to Traddles for advice ; who suggested 
that he should dictate speeches to me, at a pace, and with occasional 
stoppages, adapted to my weakness. Very grateful for this friendly aid, 
I accepted the proposal ; and night after night, almost every night, for a 
long time, we had a sort of private Parliament in Buckingham Street, 
after I came home from the Doctor's. 

I should like to see such a Parliament anywhere else ! My aunt and 
Mr. Dick represented the Government or the Opposition (as the case might 
be), and Traddles, with the assistance of Enfield's Speaker or a volume of 
parliamentary orations, thundered astonishing invectives against them. 
Standing by the table, with his finger in the page to keep the place, 

c c 



386 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

and his right arm flourishing above his head, Traddles, as Mr. Pitt, 
Mr. Pox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Burke, Lord Castlereagh, Yiscount Sidrnouth, 
or Mr. Canning, would work himself into the most violent heats, and 
deliver the most withering denunciations of the profligacy and corruption 
of my aunt and Mr. Dick ; while I used to sit, at a little distance, with 
my note-book on my knee, fagging after him with all my might and main. 
The inconsistency and recklessness of Traddles were not to be exceeded 
by any real politician. He was for any description of policy, in the com- 
pass of a week ; and nailed all sorts of colours to every denomination of 
mast. My aunt, looking very like an immoveable Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, would occasionally throw in an interruption or two, as "Hear !" 
or "No ! " or " Oh ! " when the text seemed to require it : which was 
always a signal to Mi*. Dick (a perfect country gentleman) to follow lustily 
with the same cry. But Mr. Dick got taxed with such things in the 
course of his Parliamentary career, and was made responsible for such 
awful consequences, that he became uncomfortable in his mind some- 
times. I believe he actually began to be afraid he really had been doing 
something, tending to the annihilation of the British constitution, and the 
ruin of the country. 

Often and often we pursued these debates until the clock pointed to 
midnight, and the candles were burning down. The result of so much 
good practice was, that by-and-by I began to keep pace with Traddles 
pretty well, and should have been quite triumphant if I had had the least 
idea what my notes were about. But, as to reading them after I had got 
them, I might as well have copied the Chinese inscriptions on an immense 
collection of tea-chests, or the golden characters on all the great red and 
green bottles in the chemists' shops ! 

There was nothing for it, but to turn back and begin all over again. 
It was very hard, but I turned back, though with a heavy heart, and began 
laboriously and methodically to plod over the same tedious ground at a 
snail's pace ; stopping to examine minutely every speck in the way, on 
all sides, and making the most desperate efforts to know these elusive 
characters by sight wherever I met them. I was always punctual at the 
office ; at the Doctor's too : and I really did work, as the common expres- 
sion is, like a cart-horse. 

One day, when I went to the Commons as usual, I found Mi*. Spenlow 
in the doorway looking extremely grave, and talking to himself. As he 
was in the habit of complaining of pains in his head — he had naturally a 
short throat, and I do seriously believe he overstarched himself — I was 
at first alarmed by the idea that he was not quite right in that direction : 
but he soon relieved my uneasiness. 

Instead of returning my " Good morning" with his usual affability, he 
looked at me in a distant, ceremonious manner, and coldly requested me 
to accompany him to a certain coffee-house, which, in those days, had a 
door opening into the Commons, just within the little archway in St. Paul's 
churchyard. I complied, in a very uncomfortable state, and with a warm 
shooting all over me, as if my apprehensions were breaking out into buds. 
When I allowed him to go on a little before, on account of the narrowness 
of the way, I observed that he carried his head with a lofty air that was 
particularly unpromising ; and my mind misgave me that he had found 
out about my darling Dora. 




> 






^ 



OF DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 387 

If I had not guessed this, on the way to the coffee-house, I could hardly 
have failed to know what was the matter when I followed him into an 
up-stairs room, and found Miss Murdstone there, supported by a back- 
ground of sideboard, on which were several inverted tumblers sustaining 
lemons, and two of those extraordinary boxes, all corners and flutings, for 
sticking knives and forks in, which, happily for mankind, are now obsolete. 

Miss Murdstone gave me her chilly finger-nails, and sat severely rigid. 
Mr. Spenlow shut the door, motioned me to a chair, and stood on the 
hearth-rug in front of the fireplace. 

" Have the goodness to show Mr. Copperfield," said Mr. Spenlow, 
" what you have in your reticule, Miss Murdstone." 

I believe it was the old identical steel-clasped reticule of my childhood, 
that shut up like a bite. Compressing her lips, in sympathy with the 
snap, Miss Murdstone opened it — opening her mouth a little at the same 
time — and produced my last letter to Dora, teeming with expressions of 
devoted affection. 

" I believe that is your writing, Mr. Copperfield ? " said Mr. Spenlow. 

I was very hot, and the voice I heard was very unlike mine, when I 
said, " It is sir ! " 

" If I am not mistaken," said Mr. Spenlow, as Miss Murdstone brought 
a parcel of letters out of her reticule, tied round with the dearest bit of 
blue ribbon, " those are also from your pen, Mr. Copperfield ? " 

I took them from her with a most desolate sensation ; and, glancing at 
such phrases at the top, as " My ever dearest and own Dora," " My best 
beloved angel," " My blessed one for ever," and the like, blushed deeply, 
and inclined my head. 

" No, thank you ! " said Mr. Spenlow coldly, as I mechanically offered 
them back to him. " I will not deprive you of them. Miss Murdstone, 
be so good as to proceed ! " 

That gentle creature, after a moment's thoughtful survey of the 
carpet, delivered herself with much dry unction as follows. 

" I must confess to having entertained my suspicions of Miss Spenlow, 
in reference to David Copperfield, for some time. I observed Miss 
Spenlow and David Copperfield, when they first met ; and the impression 
made upon me then was not agreeable. The depravity of the human 
heart is such " 

" You will oblige me, ma'am," interrupted Mr. Spenlow, " by confining 
yourself to facts." 

Miss Murdstone cast down her eyes, shook her head as if protesting 
against this unseemly interruption, and with frowning dignity resumed : 

" Since I am to confine myself to facts, I will state them as dryly as 
I can. Perhaps that will be considered an acceptable course of pro- 
ceeding. I have already said, sir, that I have had my suspicions of Miss 
Spenlow, in reference to David Copperfield, for some time. I have 
frequently endeavoured to find decisive coroboration of those suspicions, 
but without effect. I have therefore forborne to mention them to Miss 
Spenlow's father;" looking severely at him; "knowing how little 
disposition there usually is in such cases, to acknowledge the conscientious 
discharge of duty." 

Mr. Spenlow seemed quite cowed by the gentlemanly sternness of Miss 

c c 2 



388 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Murdstone's manner, and deprecated her severity with, a conciliatory little 
wave of his hand. 

" On my return to Norwood, after the period of absence occasioned by 
my brother's marriage," pursued Miss Murdstone in a disdainful voice, 
" and on the return of Miss Spenlow from her visit to her friend Miss 
Mills, I imagined that the manner of Miss Spenlow gave me greater 
occasion for suspicion than before. Therefore I watched Miss Spenlow 
closely." 

Dear, tender little Dora, so unconscious of this Dragon's eye ! 

" Still," resumed Miss Murdstone, " I found no proof until last 
night. It appeared to me that Miss Spenlow received too many letters 
from her friend Miss Mills; but Miss Mills being her friend with her 
father's full concurrence," another telling blow at Mr. Spenlow, " it was 
not for me to interfere. If I may not be permitted to allude to the 
natural depravity of the human heart, at least I may — I must — be per- 
mitted, so far to refer to misplaced confidence." 

Mr. Spenlow apologetically murmured his assent. 

" Last evening after tea," pursued Miss Murdstone, " I observed the 
little dog starting, rolling, and growling about the drawing-room, worrying 
something. I said to Miss Spenlow, ' Dora, what is that the dog has in 
his mouth ? It 's paper.' Miss Spenlow immediately put her hand to her 
frock, gave a sudden cry, and ran to the dog. I interposed, and said 
' Dora my love, you must permit me.' " 

Oh Jip, miserable Spaniel, this wretchedness, then, was your work ! 

"Miss Spenlow endeavoured" said Miss Murdstone "to bribe me 
with kisses, work-boxes, and small articles of jewellery — that, of course, 
I pass over, The little dog retreated under the sofa on my approaching 
him, and was with great difficulty dislodged by the fire-irons. Even when 
dislodged, he still kept the letter in his mouth ; and on my endeavouring 
to take it from him, at the imminent risk of being bitten, he kept it between 
his teeth so pertinaciously as to suffer himself to be held suspended 
in the air by means of the document. At length I obtained possession 
of it. After perusing it, I taxed Miss Spenlow with having many such 
letters in her possession ; and ultimately obtained from her, the packet 
which is now in David Copperfield's hand." 

Here she ceased; and snapping her reticule again, and shutting her 
mouth, looked as if she might be broken, but could never be bent. 

" You have heard Miss Murdstone," said Mr. Spenlow, turning to me. 
" I beg to ask, Mr. Copperfield, if you have anything to say in reply ? " 

The picture I had before me, of the beautiful little treasure of my heart, 
sobbing and crying all night — of her being alone, frightened, and 
wretched, then — of her having so piteously begged and prayed that stony- 
hearted woman to forgive her — of her having vainly offered her those 
kisses, work-boxes, and trinkets — of her being in such grievous distress, 
and all for me — very much impaired the little dignity I had been able to 
muster. I am afraid I was in a tremulous state for a minute or so, though 
I did my best to disguise it. 

"There is nothing I can say, sir," I returned, "except that all the 
blame is mine. Dora — " 

" Miss Spenlow, if you please," said her father, majestically. 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 389 

" — was induced and persuaded by me," I went on, swallowing that 
colder designation, "to consent to this concealment, and I bitterly 
regret it." 

"You are very much to blame, sir," said Mr. Spenlow, walking to 
and fro upon the hearth-rug, and emphasizing what he said with his whole 
body instead of his head, on account of the stiffness of his cravat and 
spine. "You have done a stealthy and unbecoming action, Mr. 
Copperfield. When I take a gentleman to my house, no matter whether 
he is nineteen, twenty-nine, or ninety, I take him there in a spirit of 
confidence. If he abuses my confidence, he commits a dishonourable 
action, Mr. Copperfield." 

" I feel it, sir, I assure you," I returned. " But I never thought so, 
before. Sincerely, honestly, indeed, Mr. Spenlow, I never thought so, 
before. I love Miss Spenlow to that extent — " 

" Pooh ! nonsense ! " said Mr. Spenlow, reddening. " Pray don't tell 
me to my face that you love my daughter, Mr. Copperfield ! " 

"Could I defend my conduct if I did not, sir?" I returned, with all 
humility. 

" Can you defend your conduct if you do, sir ? " said Mr. Spenlow, 
stopping short upon the hearth-rug. " Have you considered your years, 
and my daughter's years, Mr. Copperfield ? Have you considered what it 
is to undermine the confidence that should subsist between my daughter 
and myself? Have you considered my daughter's station in life, the 
projects I may contemplate for her advancement, the testamentary inten- 
tions I may have with reference to her ? Have you considered anything, 
Mi'. Copperfield?" 

"Very little, sir, I am afraid;" I answered, speaking to him as respect- 
fully and sorrowfully as I felt ; " but pray believe me, I have considered 
my own worldly position. When I explained it to you, we were already 
engaged — " 

" I beg," said Mr. Spenlow, more like Punch than I had ever seen 
him, as he energetically struck one hand upon the other — I could not 
help noticing that even in my despair ; " that you will not talk to me of 
engagements, Mr. Copperfield !" 

The otherwise immoveable Miss Murd stone laughed contemptuously in 
one short syllable. 

" When I explained my altered position to you, sir," I began again, 
substituting a new form of expression for what was so unpalatable to him, 
" this concealment, into which I am so unhappy as to have led Miss 
Spenlow, had begun. Since I have been in that altered position, I have 
strained every nerve, I have exerted every energy, to improve it. I am 
sure I shall improve it in time. Will you grant me time — any length 
of time ? We are both so young, sir, — " 

" You are right," interrupted Mr. Spenlow, nodding his head a great 
many times, and frowning very much, " you are both very young. It 's 
all nonsense. Let there be an end of the nonsense. Take away those 
letters, and throw them in the fire. Give me Miss Spenlow's letters to 
throw in the fire ; and although our future intercourse must, you are 
aware, be restricted to the Commons here, we will agree to make no further 
mention of the past. Come, Mr. Copperfield, you don't want sense ; and 
this is the sensible course." 



390 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

No. I couldn't think of agreeing to it. I was very sorry, but there 
was a higher consideration than sense. Love was above all earthly con- 
siderations, and I loved Dora to idolatry, and Dora loved me. I didn't 
exactly say so ■ I softened it down as much as I could ; but I implied it, 
and I was resolute upon it. I don't think I made myself very ridiculous, 
but I know I was resolute. 

" Very well, Mr. Copperfield," said Mr. Spenlow, " I must try my 
influence with my daughter." 

Miss Murdstone, by an expressive sound, a long drawn respiration, 
which was neither a sigh nor a moan, but was like both, gave it as her 
opinion that he should have done this at first. 

" I must try," said Mr. Spenlow, confirmed by this support, " my influ- 
ence with my daughter. Do you decline to take those letters, Mr. Copper- 
field ? " For I had laid them on the table. 

Yes. I told him I hoped he would not think it wrong, but I couldn't 
possibly take them from Miss Murdstone. 

" Nor from me? " said Mr. Spenlow. 

No, I replied with the profoundest respect ; nor from him. 

w Very well ! " said Mr. Spenlow. 

A silence succeeding, I was undecided whether to go or stay. At 
length I was moving quietly towards the door, with the intention of saying 
that perhaps I should consult his feelings best by withdrawing : when he 
said, with his hands in his coat pockets, into which it was as much as he 
could do to get them ; and with what I should call, upon the whole, a 
decidedly pious air : 

" You are probably aware, Mr. Copperfield, that I am not altogether 
destitute of worldly possessions, and that my daughter is my nearest and 
dearest relative?" 

I hurriedly made him a reply to the effect, that I hoped the error into 
which I had been betrayed by the desperate nature of my love, did not 
induce him to think me mercenary too ? 

" I don't allude to the matter in that light," said Mr. Spenlow. " It 
would be better for yourself, and all of us, if you were mercenary, Mr. 
Copperfield — I mean, if you were more discreet and less influenced by all 
this youthful nonsense. No. I merely say, with quite another view, you 
are probably aware I have some property to bequeath to my child ? " 

I certainly supposed so. 

"And you can hardly think," said Mr. Spenlow, "having experience of 
what we see, in the Commons here, every day, of the various unaccount- 
able and negligent proceedings of men, in respect of their testamentary 
arrangements — of all subjects, the one on which perhaps the strangest 
revelations of human inconsistency are to be met with — but that mine are 
made?" 

I inclined my head in acquiescence. 

" I should not allow," said Mr. Spenlow, with an evident increase of 
pious sentiment, and slowly shaking his head as he poised himself upon his 
toes and heels alternately, " my suitable provision for my child to be influ- 
enced by a piece of youthful folly like the present. It is mere folly. 
Mere nonsense. In a little while, it will weigh lighter than any feather. 
But I might — I might — if this silly business were not completely relin- 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 391 

quished altogether, be induced in some anxious moment to guard her from, 
and surround her with protections against, the consequences of, any foolish 
step in the way of marriage. Now, Mr. Copperfield, I hope that you will 
not render it necessary for me to open, even for a quarter of an hour, that 
closed page in the book of life, and unsettle, even for a quarter of an hour, 
grave affairs long since composed." 

There was a serenity, a tranquillity, a calm-sunset air about him, which 
quite affected me. He was so peaceful and resigned — clearly had his 
affairs in such perfect train, and so systematically wound up — that he was 
a man to feel touched in the contemplation of. I really think I saw tears 
rise to his eyes, from the depth of his own feeling of all this. 

But what could I do ? I could not deny Dora and my own heart. 
When he told me I had better take a week to consider of what he had said, 
how could I say I wouldn't take a week, yet how could I fail to know that 
no amount of weeks could influence such love as mine ? 

" In the meantime, confer with Miss Trotwood, or with any person with 
any knowledge of life," said Mr. Spenlow, adjusting his cravat with both 
hands. " Take a week, Mr. Copperfield." 

I submitted ; and, with a countenance as expressive as I was able to 
make it of dejected and despairing constancy, came out of the room. 
Miss Murdstone's heavy eyebrows followed me to the door — I say her 
eyebrows rather than her eyes, because they were much more important 
in her face — and she looked so exactly as she used to look, at about that 
hour of the morning, in our parlour at Blunderstone, that I could have 
fancied I had been breaking down in my lessons again, and that the dead 
weight on my mind was that horrible old spelling-book, with oval 
woodcuts, shaped, to my youthful fancy, like the glasses out of spectacles. 

When I got to the office, and, shutting out old Tiffey and the rest of 
them with my hands, sat at my desk, in my own particular nook, thinking 
of this earthquake that had taken place so unexpectedly, and in the bitter- 
ness of my spirit cursing Jip, I fell into such a state of torment about 
Dora, that I wonder I did not take up my hat and rush insanely to Nor- 
wood. The idea of their frightening her, and making her cry, and of my 
not being there to comfort her, was so excruciating, that it impelled me 
to write a wild letter to Mr. Spenlow, beseeching him not to visit upon 
her the consequences of my awful destiny. I implored him to spare her 
gentle nature — not to crush a fragile flower — and addressed him generally, 
to the best of my remembrance, as if, instead of being her father, he had 
been an Ogre, or the Dragon of Wantley. This letter I sealed and laid 
upon his desk before he returned ; and when he came in, I saw him, 
through the half-opened door of his room, take it up and read it. 

He said nothing about it all the morning ; but before he went away in 
the afternoon he called me in, and told me that I need not make myself 
at all uneasy about his daughter's happiness. He had assured her, he 
said, that it was all nonsense ; and he had nothing more to say to her. 
He believed he was an indulgent father (as indeed he was), and I might 
spare myself any solicitude on her account. 

" You may make it necessary, if you are foolish or obstinate, Mr. Cop- 
perfield," he observed, "for me to send my daughter abroad again, for a 
term $ but I have a better opinion of you. I hope you will be wiser than 



392 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

that, in a few days. As to Miss Murdstone," for I had alluded to her in 
the letter, " I respect that lady's vigilance, and feel obliged to her; but she 
has strict charge to avoid the subject. All I desire, Mr. Copperfield, is, 
that it should be forgotten. AU you have got to do, Mr. Copperfield, is, 
to forget it." 

All ! In the note I wrote to Miss Mills, I bitterly quoted this senti- 
ment. All I had to do, I said, with gloomy sarcasm, was to forget Dora. 
That was all, and what was that ! I entreated Miss Mills to see me, that 
evening. If it could not be done with Mr. Mills's sanction and concur- 
rence, I besought a clandestine interview in the back kitchen where the 
Mangle was. I informed her that my reason was tottering on its throne, 
and only she, Miss Mills, could prevent its being deposed. I signed 
myself, hers distractedly ; and I couldn't help feeling, when I read this 
composition over, before sending it by a porter, that it was something in 
the style of Mr. Micawber. 

However, I sent it. At night I repaired to Miss Mills's street, and 
walked up and down, until I was stealthily fetched in by Miss Mills's 
maid, and taken the area way to the back kitchen. I have since seen 
reason to believe that there was nothing on earth to prevent my going in 
at the front door, and being shown up into the drawing-room, except Miss 
Mills's love of the romantic and mysterious. 

In the back kitchen, I raved as became me. I went there, I suppose, 
to make a fool of myself, and I am quite sure I did it. Miss Mills had 
received a hasty note from Dora, telling her that all was discovered, and 
saying, " Oh pray come to me, Julia, do, do ! " But Miss Mills, mistrust- 
ing the acceptability of her presence to the higher powers, had not yet 
gone ; and we were all benighted in the Desert of Sahara. 

Miss Mills had a wonderful flow of words, and liked to pour them out. 
I could not help feeling, though she mingled her tears with mine, that 
she had a dreadful luxury in our afflictions. She petted them, as I may 
say, and made the most of them. A deep gulf, she observed, had 
opened between Dora and. me, and Love could only span it with its 
rainbow. Love must suffer in this stern world ; it ever had been so, it 
ever would be so. No matter, Miss Mills remarked. Hearts confined by 
cobwebs would burst at last, and then Love was avenged. 

This was small consolation, but Miss Mills wouldn't encourage fallacious 
hopes. She made me much more wretched than I was before, and I felt 
(and told her with the deepest gratitude) that she was indeed a friend. 
We resolved that she should go to Dora the first thing in the morning, 
and find some means of assuring her, either by looks or words, of my 
devotion and misery. We parted, overwhelmed with grief; and I think 
Miss Mills enjoyed herself completely. 

I confided all to my aunt when I got home ; and in spite of all she could 
say to me, went to bed despairing. I got up despairing, and went 
out despairing. It was Saturday morning, and I went straight to the 
Commons. 

I was surprised, when I came within sight of our office-door, to see the 
ticket-porters standing outside talking together, and some half dozen 
stragglers gazing at the windows which were shut up. I quickened my 
pace, and, passing among them, wondering at their looks, went hurriedly in. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 393 

The clerks were there, but nobody was doing anything. Old Tiffey, for 
the first time in his life I should think, was sitting on somebody else's 
stool, and had not hung up his hat. 

" This is a dreadful calamity, Mr. Copperfield," said he, as I entered. 

" What is ? " I exclaimed. " What 's the matter ? " 

" Don't you know ? " cried Tiffey, and all the rest of them, coming 
round me. 

" No ! " said I, looking from face to face. 

" Mr. Spenlow," said Tiffey. 

" What about him ! " 

" Dead ! " 

I thought it was the office reeling, and not I, as one of the clerks 
caught hold of me. They sat me down in a chair, untied my neckcloth, 
and brought me some water. I have no idea whether this took any time. 

"Dead?" said I. 

" He dined in town yesterday, and drove down in the phaeton by him- 
self," said Tiffey, " having sent his own groom home by the coach, as he 
sometimes did, you know " 

"Well?" 

" The phaeton went home without him. The horses stopped at the 
stable gate. The man went out with a lantern. Nobody in the carriage." 

" Had they run away ? " 

"■ They were not hot," said Tiffey, putting on his glasses ; " no hotter, I 
understand, than they would have been, going down at the usual pace. 
The reins were broken, but they had been dragging on the ground. The 
house was roused up directly, and three of them went out along the road. 
They found him a mile off." 

" More than a mile off, Mr. Tiffey," interposed a junior. 

" Was it ? I believe you are right," said Tiffey, — " more than a mile off 
— not far from the church — lying partly on the road- side, and partly on 
the path, upon his face. Whether he fell out in a fit, or got out, feeling 
ill before the fit came on — or even whether he was quite dead then, 
though there is no doubt he was quite insensible — no one appears to 
know. If he breathed, certainly he never spoke. Medical assistance was 
got as soon as possible, but it was quite useless." 

I cannot describe the state of mind into which I was thrown by this 
intelligence. The shock of such an event happening so suddenly, and 
happening to one with whom I had been in any respect at variance — the 
appalling vacancy in the room he had occupied so lately, where his chair 
and table seemed to wait for him, and his handwriting of yesterday was 
like a ghost — the indefinable impossibility of separating him from the 
place, and feeling, when the door opened, as if he might come in — the lazy 
hush and rest there was in the office, and the insatiable relish with which 
our people talked about it, and other people came in and out all day, and 
gorged themselves with the subject — this is easily intelligible to any one. 
What I cannot describe is, how, in the innermost recesses of my own heart, 
I had a lurking jealousy even of Death. How I felt as if its might would 
push me from my ground in Dora's thoughts. How I was, in a grudging 
way I have no words for, envious of her grief. How it made me restless 
to think of her weeping to others, or being consoled by others. How I had 



394 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

a grasping, avaricious wish to shut out everybody from her but myself, 
and to be all in all to her, at that unseasonable time of all times. 

In the trouble of this state of mind — not exclusively my own, I hope, 
but known to others — I went down to Norwood that night ; and finding 
from one of the servants, when I made my inquiries at the door, that 
Miss Mills was there, got my aunt to direct a letter to her, which I wrote. 
I deplored the untimely death of Mr. Spenlow most sincerely, and shed 
tears in doing so. I entreated her to tell Dora, if Dora were in a state to 
hear it, that he had spoken to me with the utmost kindness and con- 
sideration ; and had coupled nothing but tenderness, not a single or 
reproachful word, with her name. I know I did this selfishly, to have 
my name brought before her ; but I tried to believe it was an act of justice 
to his memory. Perhaps I did believe it. 

My aunt received a few lines next day in reply ; addressed, outside, to 
her; within, to me. Dora was overcome by grief; and when her friend 
had asked her should she send her love to me, had only cried, as she was 
always crying, " Oh, dear papa ! oh, poor papa ! " But she had not said 
No, and that I made the most of. 

Mr. Jorkins, who had been at Norwood since the occurrence, came to 
the office a few days afterwards. He and Tiffey were closeted together 
for some few moments, and then Tiffey looked out at the door and beckoned 
me in. 

" Oh ! " said Mr. Jorkins. " Mr. Tiffey and myself, Mr. Copperfield, 
are about to examine the desk, the drawers, and other such repositories of the 
deceased, with the view of sealing up his private papers, and searching 
for a Will. There is no trace of any, elsewhere. It may be as well for 
you to assist us, if you please." 

I had been in agony to obtain some knowledge of the circumstances 
in which my Dora would be placed — as, in whose guardianship, and 
so forth — and this was something towards it. We began the search at 
once ; Mr. Jorkins unlocking the drawers and desks, and we all taking 
out the papers. The office-papers we placed on one side, and the private 
papers (which were not numerous) on the other. We were very grave ; 
and when we came to a stray seal, or pencil-case, or ring, or any little 
article of that kind which we associated personally with him, we spoke 
very low. 

We had sealed up several packets ; and were still going on dustily and 
quietly, when Mr. Jorkins said to us, applying exactly the same words to 
his late partner as his late partner had applied to him : 

" Mr. Spenlow was very difficult to move from the beaten track. You 
know what he was ! I am disposed to think he had made no will." 

" Oh, I know he had ! " said I. 

They both stopped and looked at me. 

" On the very day when I last saw him," said I, " he told me that he 
had, and that his affairs were long since settled." 

Mr. Jorkins and old Tiffey shook their heads with one accord. 

" That looks unpromising," said Tiffey. 

" Yery unpromising," said Mr. Jorkins. 

" Surely you don't doubt — " I began. 

" My good Mr. Copperfield ! " said Tiffey, laying his hand upon my arm, 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 395 

and shutting up both his eyes as he shook his head : " if you had been in 
the Commons as long as I have, you would know that there is no subject 
on which men are so inconsistent, and so little to be trusted." 

" Why, bless my soul, he made that very remark!" I replied persistently. 

" I should call that almost final," observed Tiffey. " My opinion is — 
no will." 

It appeared a wonderful thing to me, but it turned out that there was 
no will. He had never so much as thought of making one, so far as his 
papers afforded any evidence ; for there was no kind of hint, sketch, or 
memorandum, of any testamentary intention whatever. What was scarcely 
less astonishing to me, was, that his affairs were in a most disordered 
state. It was extremely difficult, I heard, to make out what he owed, or 
what he had paid, or of what he died possessed. It was considered likely 
that for years he could have had no clear opinion on these subjects himself. 
By little and little it came out, that, in the competition on all points of 
appearance and gentility then running high in the Commons, he had 
spent more than his professional income, which was not a very large one, 
and had reduced his private means, if they ever had been great (which was 
exceedingly doubtful), to a very low ebb indeed. There was a sale of the 
furniture and lease, at Norwood ; and Tiffey told me, little thinking how 
interested I was in the story, that, paying all the just debts of the deceased, 
and deducting his share of outstanding Dad and doubtful debts due to the 
firm, he wouldn't give a thousand pounds for all the assets remaining. 

This was at the expiration of about six weeks. I had suffered tortures 
all the time ; and thought I really must have laid violent hands upon 
myself, when Miss Mills still reported to me, that my broken-hearted little 
Dora would say nothing, when I was mentioned, but "Oh, poor papa ! Oh, 
dear papa ! " Also, that she had no other relations than two aunts, maiden 
sisters of Mr. Spenlow, who lived at Putney, and who had not held any 
other than chance communication with their brother for many years. 
Not that they had ever quarrelled (Miss Mills informed me) ; but that 
having been, on the occasion of Dora's christening, invited to tea, when 
they considered themselves privileged to be invited to dinner, they had 
expressed their opinion in writing, that it was " better for the happiness 
of all parties " that they should stay away. Since which they had gone 
their road, and their brother had gone his. 

These two ladies now emerged from their retirement, and proposed to 
take Dora to live at Putney. Dora, clinging to them both, and weeping, 
exclaimed, " yes, aunts ! Please take Julia Mills and me and Jip to 
Putney ! " So they went, very soon after the funeral. 

How I found time to haunt Putney, I am sure I don't know ; but I 
contrived, by some means or other, to prowl about the neighbourhood 
pretty often. Miss Mills, for the more exact discharge of the duties of 
friendship, kept a journal ; and she used to meet me sometimes, on the 
Common, and read it, or (if she had not time to do that) lend it to me. 
How I treasured up the entries, of which I subjoin a sample ! 

"Monday. My sweet D. still much depressed. Headache. Called 
attention to J. as being beautifully sleek. D. fondled J. Associations 
thus awakened, opened floodgates of sorrow. Eush of grief admitted. 
(Are tears the dewdrops of the heart ? J. M.) 



396 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Tuesday. D: weak and nervous. Beautiful in pallor. (Do we not 
remark this in moon likewise ? J. M.) D. J. M. and J. took airing in 
carriage. J. looking out of window, and barking violently at dustman, 
occasioned smile to overspread features of D. (Of such slight links is 
chain of life composed ! J. M.) 

" Wednesday. D. comparatively cheerful. Sang to her, as congenial 
melody, Evening Bells. Effect not soothing, but reverse. D. inexpres- 
sibly affected. Pound sobbing afterwards, in own room. Quoted verses 
respecting self and young Gazelle. Ineffectually. Also referred to 
Patience on Monument. (Qy. Why on monument ? J. M.) 

" Thursday. D. certainly improved. Better night. Slight tinge of 
damask revisiting cheek. Eesolved to mention name of D. C. Introduced 
same, cautiously, in course of airing. D. immediately overcome. ' Oh, 
dear, dear Julia ! Oh, I have been a naughty and undutiful child ! ' 
Soothed and caressed. Drew ideal picture of D. C. on verge of tomb. 
D. again overcome. ' Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do ? Oh, take 
me somewhere ! ' Much alarmed. Fainting of D. and glass of water 
from public-house. (Poetical affinity. Chequered sign on door-post; 
chequered human life. Alas ! J. M.) 

" Friday. Day of incident. Man appears in kitchen, with blue bag, 
1 for lady's boots left out to heel.' Cook replies, 'No such orders.* Man 
argues point. Cook withdraws to inquire, leaving man alone with J. On 
Cook's return, man still argues point, but ultimately goes. J. missing. 
D. distracted. Information sent to police. Man to be identified by 
broad nose, and legs like balustrades of bridge. Search made in every 
direction. No J. D. weeping bitterly, and inconsolable. Renewed 
reference to young Gazelle. Appropriate, but unavailing. Towards 
evening, strange boy calls. Brought into parlour. Broad nose, but no 
balustrades. Says he wants a pound, and knows a dog. Declines to 
explain further, though much pressed. Pound being produced by D. 
takes Cook to little house, where J. alone tied up to leg of table. Joy of 
D. who dances round J. while he eats his supper. Emboldened by this 
happy change, mention D. C. upstairs. D. weeps afresh, cries piteously. 
' Oh, don't, don't, don't. It is so wicked to think of anything but poor 
papa!' — embraces J. and sobs herself to sleep. (Must not D. C. confide 
himself to the broad pinions of Time ? J. M.) " 

Miss Mills and her journal were my sole consolation at this period. To 
see her, who had seen Dora but a little while before — to trace the initial 
letter of Dora's name through her sympathetic pages — to be made more and 
more miserable by her — were my only comforts. I felt as if I had been living 
in a palace of cards, which had tumbled down, leaving only Miss Mills 
and me among the ruins ; as if some grim enchanter had drawn a magic 
circle round the innocent goddess of my heart, which nothing indeed but 
those same strong pinions, capable of carrying so many people over so 
much, would enable me to enter ! 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 897 



CHAPTEK XXXIX. 

WICKFIELD AND HEEP. 

My aunt, beginning, I imagine, to be made seriously uncomfortable by 
my prolonged dejection, made a pretence of being anxious that I should 
go to Dover, to see that all was working well at the cottage, which was 
let ; and to conclude an agreement, with the same tenant, for a longer term 
of occupation. Janet was drafted into the service of Mrs. Strong, where 
I saw her every day. She had been undecided, on leaving Dover, whether 
or no to give the finishing touch to that renunciation of mankind in 
which she had been educated, by marrying a pilot ; but she decided against 
that venture. Not so much for the sake of principle, I believe, as because 
she happened not to like him. 

Although it required an effort to leave Miss Mills, I fell rather willingly 
into my aunt's pretence, as a means of enabling me to pass a few tranquil 
hours with Agnes. I consulted the good Doctor relative to an absence of 
three days ; and the Doctor wishing me to take that relaxation, — he wished 
me to take more ; but my energy could not bear that, — I made up my mind 
to go. 

As to the Commons, I had no great occasion to be particular about my 
duties in that quarter. To say the truth, we were getting in no very good 
odour among the tip-top proctors, and were rapidly sliding down to but a 
doubtful position. The business had been indifferent under Mr. Jorkins, 
before Mr. Spenlow's time ; and although it had been quickened by the 
infusion of new blood, and by the display which Mr. Spenlow made, still 
it was not established on a sufficiently strong basis to bear, without being- 
shaken, such a blow as the sudden loss of its active manager. It fell 
off very much. Mr. Jorkins, notwithstanding his reputation in the firm, 
was an easy-going, incapable, sort of man, whose reputation out of 
doors was not calculated to back it up. I was turned over to him now, 
and when I saw him take hi * snuff and let the business go, I regretted my 
aunt's thousand pounds more than ever. 

But this was not the worst of it. There were a number of hangers-on 
and outsiders about the Commons, who, without being proctors them- 
selves, dabbled in common-form business, and got it done by real proctors, 
who lent their names in consideration of a share in the spoil ; — and there 
were a good many of these too. As our house now wanted business on 
any terms, we joined this noble band ; and threw out lures to the hangers-on 
and outsiders, to bring their business to us. Marriage licenses and small 
probates were what we all looked for, and what paid us best ; and the 
competition for these, ran very high indeed. Kidnappers and inveiglers 
were planted in all the avenues of entrance to the Commons, with instruc- 
tions to do their utmost to cut off all persons in mourning, and all 
gentlemen with anything bashful in their appearance, and entice them to 



398 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

the offices in which their respective employers were interested; which 
instructions were so well observed, that I myself, before I was known by 
sight, was twice hustled into the premises of our principal opponent. 
The conflicting interests of these touting gentlemen being of a nature to 
irritate their feelings, personal collisions took place ; and the Commons 
was even scandalised by our principal inveigler (who had formerly been in 
the wine trade, and afterwards in the sworn brokery line) walking about for 
some days with a black eye. Any one of these scouts used to think 
nothing of politely assisting an old lady in black out of a vehicle, killing 
any proctor whom she inquired for, representing his employer as the lawful 
successor and representative of that proctor, and bearing the old lady off 
(sometimes greatly affected) to his employer's office. Many captives were 
brought to me in this way. As to marriage licenses, the competition rose 
to such a pitch, that a shy gentleman in want of one, had nothing to do 
but submit himself to the first inveigler, or be fought for, and become the 
prey of the strongest. One of our clerks, who was an outsider, used, in 
the height of this contest, to sit with his hat on, that he might be ready 
to rush out and swear before a surrogate any victim who was brought in. 
The system of inveigling continues, I believe, to this day. The last time I 
was in the Commons, a civil able-bodied person in a white apron pounced 
out upon me from a doorway, and whispering the word " Marriage- 
license " in my ear, was with great difficulty prevented from taking me 
up in his arms and lifting me into a proctor's. 

From this digression, let me proceed to Dover. 

I found everything in a satisfactory state at the cottage ; and was 
enabled to gratify my aunt exceedingly by reporting that the tenant 
inherited her feud, and waged incessant war against donkies. Having 
settled the little business I had to transact there, and slept there one 
night, I walked on to Canterbury early in the morning. It was now 
winter again ; and the fresh, cold windy day, and the sweeping down- 
land, brightened up my hopes a little. 

Coming into Canterbury, I loitered through the old streets with a sober 
pleasure that calmed my spirits, and eased my heart. There were the 
old signs, the old names over the shops, the old people serving i-n them. 
It appeared so long, since I had been a schoolboy there, that I wondered 
the place was so little changed, until I reflected how little I was 
changed myself. Strange to say, that quiet influence which was insepa- 
rable in my mind from Agnes, seemed to pervade even the city where she 
dwelt. The venerable cathedral towers, and the old jackdaws and rooks 
whose airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence would 
have done; the battered gateways, once stuck full with statues, long 
thrown down, and crumbled away, like the reverential pilgrims who had 
gazed upon them ; the still nooks, where the ivied growth of centuries 
crept over gabled ends and ruined walls ; the ancient houses, the pastoral 
landscape of field, orchard, and garden ; everywhere — on everything — 
I felt the same serener air, the same calm, thoughtful, softening spirit. 

Arrived at Mr. Wickfield's house, I found, in the little lower-room on 
the ground floor, where Uriah Heep had been of old accustomed to sit, 
Mr. Micawber plying his pen with great assiduity. He was dressed in a 
legal-looking suit of black, and loomed, burly and large, in that small office. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD, 399 

Mr. Micawber was extremely glad to see me, but a little confused too. 
He would have conducted me immediately into the presence of Uriah, but 
I declined. 

" I know the house of old, you recollect," said I, " and will find my 
way up stairs. How do you like the law, Mr. Micawber ? " 

" My dear Copperfield," he replied. " To a man possessed of the 
higher imaginative powers, the objection to legal studies is the amount of 
detail which they involve. Even in our professional correspondence," 
said Mr. Micawber, glancing at some letters he was writing, " the mind 
is not at liberty to soar to any exalted form of expression. Still, it is a 
great pursuit. A great pursuit ! " 

He then told me that he had become the tenant of Uriah Heep's old 
house ; and that Mrs. Micawber would be delighted to receive me, once 
more, under her own roof. 

" It is humble," said Mr. Micawber, " — to quote a favourite expression 
of my friend Heep ; but it may prove the stepping-stone to more 
ambitious domiciliary accommodation." 

I asked him whether he had reason, so far, to be satisfied with his friend 
Heep's treatment of him ? He got up to ascertain if the door were close 
shut, before he replied, in a lower voice : 

"My dear Copperfield, a man who labours under the pressure of 
pecuniary embarrassments, is, with the generality of people, at a disad- 
vantage. That disadvantage is not diminished, when that pressure neces- 
sitates the drawing of stipendiary emoluments, before those emoluments 
are strictly due and payable. All I can say is, that my friend Heep has 
responded to appeals to which I need not more particularly refer, in a 
manner calculated to redound equally to the honour of his head, and of 
his heart." 

" I should not have supposed him to be very free with his money 
either," I observed. 

" Pardon me ! " said Mr. Micawber, with an air of constraint, " I 
speak of my friend Heep as I have experience." 

" I am glad your experience is so favourable," I returned. 

"You are very obliging, my dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber; 
and hummed a tune. 

" Do you see much of Mr. Wickfield ? " I asked, to change the subject. 

" Not much," said Mr. Micawber, slightingly. " Mr. Wickfield is, I 
dare say, a man of very excellent intentions ; but he is — in short, he 
is obsolete." 

" I am afraid his partner seeks to make him so," said I. 

" My dear Copperfield ! " returned Mr. Micawber, after some uneasy 
evolutions on his stool, "allow me to offer a remark! I am here, in a 
capacity of confidence. I am here, in a position of trust. The discussion 
of some topics, even with Mrs. Micawber herself (so long the partner of 
my various vicissitudes, and a woman of a remarkable lucidity of intellect), 
is, I am led to consider, incompatible with the functions now devolving 
on me. I would therefore take the liberty of suggesting that in our 
friendly intercourse — which I trust will never be disturbed ! — we draw 
a line. On one side of this line," said Mr. Micawber, representing 
it on the desk with the office ruler, " is the whole range of the human 



400 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

intellect, with a trifling exception ; on the other, is that exception ; that is 
to say, the affairs of Messrs. Wickfield and Heep, with all belonging and 
appertaining thereunto. I trust I give no offence to the companion of 
my youth, in submitting this proposition to his cooler judgment ? " 

Though I saw an uneasy change in Mr. Micawber, which sat tightly on 
him, as if his new duties were a misfit, I felt I had no right to be 
offended. My telling him so, appeared to relieve him j and he shook 
hands with me. 

"I am charmed, Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "let me assure 
you, with Miss Wickfield. She is a very superior young lady, of very 
remarkable attractions, graces, and virtues. Upon my honour," said Mr. 
Micawber, indefinitely kissing his hand and bowing with his genteelest 
air, " I do Homage to Miss Wickfield ! Hem ! " 

" I am glad of that, at least," said I. 

" If you had not assured us, my dear Copperfield, on the occasion of 
that agreeable afternoon we had the happiness of passing with you, that 
D was your favourite letter," said Mr. Micawber, " I should unquestion- 
ably have supposed that A had been so." 

We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, 
of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in 
a remote time — of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the 
same faces, objects, and circumstances — of our knowing perfectly what 
will be said next, as if we suddenly remembered it ! I never had this 
mysterious impression more strongly in my life, than before he uttered 
those words. 

I took my leave of Mr. Micawber, for the time, charging him with my 
best remembrances to all at home. As I left him, resuming his stool 
and his pen, and rolling his head in his stock, to get it into easier writing 
order, I clearly perceived that there was something interposed between him 
and me, since he had come into his new functions which prevented our 
getting at each other as we used to do, and quite altered the character of 
our intercourse. 

There was no one in the quaint old drawing-room, though it presented 
tokens of Mrs. Heep's whereabout. I looked into the room still belonging 
to Agnes, and saw her sitting by the fire, at a pretty old fashioned desk 
she had, writing. 

My darkening the light made her look up. What a pleasure to be the 
cause of that bright change in her attentive face, and the object of that 
sweet regard and welcome ! 

" Ah, Agnes ! " said T, when we were sitting together, side by side ; 
" I have missed you so much, lately ! " 

" Indeed ? " she replied. " Again ! And so soon ? " 

I shook my head. 

" I don't know how it is, Agnes ; I seem to want some faculty of mind 
that I ought to have. You were so much in the habit of thinking for me, 
in the happy old days here, and I came so naturally to you for counsel 
and support, that I really think I have missed acquiring it ? " 

" And what is it ? " said Agnes, cheerfully. 

" I don't know what to call it," I replied. " I think I am earnest and 
persevering ? " 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 401 

" I am sure of it," said Agnes. 

" And patient, Agnes ? " I enquired, with a little hesitation. 
"Yes," returned Agnes, laughing. " Pretty well." 
"And yet," said I, "I get so miserable and worried, and am so 
unsteady and irresolute in my power of assuring myself, that I know I 
must want — shall I call it — reliance, of some kind ? " 
" Call it so, if you will," said Agnes. 

" Well ! " I returned. " See here ! You come to London, I rely on 
you, and I have an object and a course at once. I am driven out of it, 
I come here, and in a moment I feel an altered person. The circumstances 
that distressed me are not changed, since I came into this room ; but an 
influence comes over me in that short interval that alters me, oh, how much 
for the better ! What is it ? What is your secret, Agnes ? " 

Her head was bent down, looking at the fire. 

" It 's the old story," said I. " Don't laugh, when I say it was always 
the same in little things as it is in greater ones. My old troubles were 
nonsense, and now they are serious ; but whenever I have gone away from 
my adopted sister — " 

Agnes looked up — with such a Heavenly face ! — and gave me her hand, 
which I kissed. 

" Whenever I have not had you, Agnes, to advise and approve in the 
beginning, I have seemed to go wild, and to get into all sorts of difficulty. 
When I have come to you, at last (as I have always done), I have come to 
peace and happiness. I come home, now, tike a tired traveller, and find 
such a blessed sense of rest ! " 

I felt so deeply what I said, it affected me so sincerely, that my voice 
failed, and I covered my face with my hand, and broke into tears. I write 
the truth. Whatever contradictions and inconsistencies there were within 
me, as there are within so many of us ; whatever might have been so 
different, and so much better ; whatever I had done, in which I had per- 
versely wandered away from the voice of my own heart ; I knew nothing 
of. I only knew that I was fervently in earnest, when I felt the rest and 
peace of having Agnes near me. 

In her placid sisterly manner ; with her beaming eyes ; with her tender 
voice; and with that sweet composure, which had long ago made the 
house that held her quite a sacred place to me ; she soon won me from this 
weakness, and led me on to tell all that had happened since our last meeting. 

" And there is not another word to tell, Agnes," said I, when I had 
made an end of my confidence. " Now, my reliance is on you." 

" But it must not be on me, Trotwood," returned Agnes, with a pleasant 
smile. " It must be on some one else." 

" On Dora ? " said I. 

" Assuredly." 

" Why, I have not mentioned, Agnes," said I, a little embarrassed, 
" that Dora is rather difficult to — I would not, for the world, say, to rely 
upon, because she is the soul of purity and truth — but rather difficult 
to — I hardly know how to express it, really, Agnes. She is a timid little 
thing, and easily disturbed and frightened. Some time ago, before her 
father's death, when I thought it right to mention to her — but I '11 tell 
you, if you will bear with me, how it was." 

D D 



402 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Accordingly, I told Agnes about my declaration of poverty, about the 
cookery-book, the housekeeping accounts, and all the rest of it. 

" Oh, Trotwood ! " she remonstrated, with a smile. " Just your old 
headlong way ! You might have been in earnest in striving to get on in 
the world, without being so very sudden with a timid, loving, inexperienced 
girl. Poor Dora ! " 

I never heard such sweet forbearing kindness expressed in a voice, as 
she expressed in making this reply. It was as if I had seen her admir- 
ingly and tenderlv embracing Dora, and tacitly reproving me, by her con- 
siderate protection, for my hot haste in fluttering that little heart. It was 
as if I had seen Dora, in all her fascinating artlessness, caressing Agnes, 
and thanking her, and coaxingly appealing against me, and loving me with 
all her childish innocence. 

I felt so grateful to Agnes, and admired her so ! I saw those two 
together, in a bright perspective, such well-associated friends, each adorning 
the other so much ! 

" "What ought I to do then, Agnes ? " I inquired, after looking at the 
fire a little while. " What would it be right to do ? " 

" I think," said Agnes, " that the honourable course to take, would be 
to write to those two ladies. Don't you think that any secret course is 
an unworthy one ? " 

"Yes. liyou think so," said I. 

" I am poorly qualified to judge of such matters," replied Agnes, with 
a modest hesitation, " but I certainly feel — in short, I feel that your 
being secret and clandestine, is not being like yourself." 

" Like myself, in the too high opinion you have of me, Agnes, I am 
afraid," said I. 

" Like yourself in the candour of your nature," she returned ; " and 
therefore I would write to those two ladies. I would relate, as plainly 
and as openly as possible, all that has taken place ; and I would ask their 
permission to visit sometimes, at their house. Considering that you are 
young, and striving for a place in life, I think it would be well to say that 
you would readily abide by any conditions they might impose upon you. 
I would entreat them not to dismiss your request, without a reference to 
Dora ; and to discuss it with her when they should think the time suitable. 
I would not be too vehement," said Agnes, gently, " or propose too much. 
I would trust to my fidelity and perseverance — and to Dora." 

" But if they were to frighten Dora again, Agnes, by speaking to her," 
said I. " And if Dora were to cry, and say nothing about me ! " 

" Is that likely ? " inquired Agnes, with the same sweet consideration in 
her face. 

" God bless her, she is as easily scared as a bird," said I. " It might 
be ! Or if the two Miss Spenlows (elderly ladies of that sort are odd 
characters sometimes) should not be likely persons to address in that 
way!" 

" I don't think, Trotwood," returned Agnes, raising her soft eyes to 
mine, " I would consider that. Perhaps it would be better only to con- 
sider whether it is right to do this ; and, if it is, to do it." 

I had no longer any doubt on the subject. With a lightened heart, 
though with a profound sense of the weighty importance of my task, I 



OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 403 

devoted the whole afternoon to the composition of the draft of this 
letter ; for which great purpose, Agnes relinquished her desk to me. But 
first I went down stairs to see Mr. Wickfield and Uriah Heep. 

I found Uriah in possession of a new, plaster-smelling office, built out in 
the garden ; looking extraordinarily mean, in the midst of a quantity of 
books and papers. He received me in his usual fawning way, and pre- 
tended not to have heard of my arrival from Mr. Micawber ; a pretence 
I took the liberty of disbelieving. He accompanied me into Mr. 
Wickfield's room, which was the shadow of its former self — having been 
divested of a variety of conveniences, for the accommodation of the 
new partner — and stood before the fire, warming his back, and shaving 
his chin with his bony hand, while Mr. Wickfield and I exchanged 
greetings. 

" You stay with us, Trotwood, while you remain in Canterbury ? " said 
Mr. Wickfield, not without a glance at Uriah for his approval. 

" Is there room for me?" said I. 

" I am sure, Master Copperfield — I should say Mister, but the other 
comes so natural," said Uriah, — " I would turn out of your old room with 
pleasure, if it would be agreeable." 

" No, no," said Mr. Wickfield. " Why should you be inconvenienced ? 
There 's another room. There 's another room." 

" Oh, but you know," returned Uriah, with a grin, " I should really be 
delighted ! " 

To cut the matter short, I said I would have the other room or none at 
all ; so it was settled that I should have the other room : and, taking my 
leave of the firm until dinner, I went up stairs again. 

I had hoped, to have no other companion than Agnes. But Mrs. Heep 
had asked permission to bring herself and her knitting near the fire, in that 
room ; on pretence of its having an aspect more favourable for her rheu- 
matics, as the wind then was, than the drawing-room or dining-parlour. 
Though I could almost have consigned her to the mercies of the wind on 
the topmost pinnacle of the Cathedral, without remorse, I made a virtue of 
necessity, and gave her a friendly salutation. 

" I 'm umbly thankful to you, sir," said Mrs. Heep, in acknowledgment of 
my inquiries concerning her health, " but I 'm only pretty well. I haven't 
much to boast of. If I could see my Uriah well settled in life, I couldn't 
expect much more I think. How do you think my Ury looking, sir ?" 

I thought him looking as villanous as ever, and I replied that I saw no 
change in him. 

"Oh, don't you think he's changed?" said Mrs. Heep. "There I 
must umbly beg leave to differ from you. Don't you see a thinness 
in him?" 

" Not more than usual," I replied. 

" Don't you though ! " said Mrs. Heep. " But you don't take notice 
of him with a mother's eye ! " 

His mother's eye was an evil eye to the rest of the world, I thought as 
it met mine, howsoever affectionate to him ; and I believe she and her son 
were devoted to one another. It passed me, and went on to Agnes. 

" Don't you see a wasting and a wearing in him, Miss Wickfield ? " 
inquired Mrs. Heep. 

d d 2 



404 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" No," said Agnes, quietly pursuing the work on which she was engaged. 
" You are too solicitous about him. He is very well." 

Mrs. Heep, with a prodigious sniff, resumed her knitting. 

She never left off, or left us for a moment. I had arrived early in the day, 
and we had still three or four hours before dinner ; but she sat there, 
plying her knitting-needles as monotonously as an hour-glass might have 
poured out its sands. She sat on one side of the fire ; I sat at the desk in 
front of it ; a little beyond me, on the other side, sat Agnes. Whensoever, 
slowly pondering over my letter, I lifted up my eyes, and meeting the 
thoughtful face of Agnes, saw it clear, and beam encouragement upon 
me, with its own angelic expression, I was conscious presently of the 
evil eye passing me, and going on to her, and coming back to me again, and 
dropping furtively upon the knitting. What the knitting was, I don't 
know, not being learned in that art ; but it looked like a net ; and as 
she worked away with those Chinese chopsticks of knitting-needles, she 
showed in the firelight like an ill-looking enchantress, baulked as yet by the 
radiant goodness opposite, but getting ready for a cast of her net by-and-by. 

At dinner she maintained her watch, with the same unwinking eyes. 
After dinner, her son took his turn ; and when Mr. Wickfield, himself, and 
I were left alone together, leered at me, and writhed until I could hardly 
bear it. In the drawing-room, there was the mother knitting and watch- 
ing again. All the time that Agnes sang and played, the mother sat at the 
piano. Once she asked for a particular ballad, which she said her Ury 
(who was yawning in a great chair) doted on ; and at intervals she looked 
round at him, and reported to Agnes that he was in raptures with the 
music. But she hardly ever spoke — I question if she ever did — without 
making some mention of him. It was evident to me that this was the 
duty assigned to her. 

This lasted until bedtime. To have seen the mother and son, like two 
great bats hanging over the whole house, and darkening it with their ugly 
forms, made me so uncomfortable, that I would rather have remained 
down stairs, knitting and all, than gone to bed. I hardly got any sleep. 
Next day the knitting and watching began again, and lasted all day. 

I had not an opportunity of speaking to Agnes, for ten minutes. I 
could barely show her my letter. I proposed to her to walk out with 
me ; but Mrs. Heep repeatedly complaining that she was worse, Agnes 
charitably remained within, to bear her company. Towards the twilight 
I went out by myself, musing on what I ought to do, and whether I was 
justified in withholding from Agnes, any longer, what Uriah Heep had 
told me in London ; for that began to trouble me again, very much. 

I had not walked out far enough to be quite clear of the town, upon 
the Eamsgate road, where there was a good path, when I was hailed, 
through the dusk, by somebody behind me. The shambling figure, and 
the scanty great coat, were not to be mistaken. I stopped, and Uriah 
Heep came up. 

"Well?" said! 

" How fast you walk ! " said he. " My legs are pretty long, but 
you 've given 'em quite a job." 

" Where are you going ? " said I. 

" I am coming with you, Master Copperfield, if you '11 allow me the 



OF DAVID COPPER1IELD . 405 

pleasure of a walk with an old acquaintance." Saying this, with a jerk of 
his body, which might have been either propitiatory or derisive, he fell 
into step beside me. 

" Uriah ! " said I, as civilly as I could, after a silence. 

" Master Copperfield ! " said Uriah. 

" To tell you the truth (at which you will not be offended), I came out 
to walk alone, because I have had so much company." 

He looked at me sideways, and said with his hardest grin, " You mean 
mother ? " 

" Why yes, I do," said I. 

" Ah ! But you know we 're so very umble," he returned. " And 
having such a knowledge of our own umbleness, we must really take care 
that we 're not pushed to the wall by them as isn't umble. All stratagems 
are fair in love, sir." 

Kaising his great hands until they touched his chin, he rubbed them 
softly, and softly chuckled ; looking as like a malevolent baboon, I thought, 
as anything human could look. 

" You see," he said, still hugging himself in that unpleasant way, and 
shaking his head at me, " you 're quite a dangerous rival, Master Copper- 
field. You always was, you know." 

" Do you set a watch upon Miss Wickfield, and make her home no 
home, because of me ? " said I. 

" Oh ! Master Copperfield ! Those are very arsh words," he replied. 

" Put my meaning into any words you like," said I. " You know what 
it is, Uriah, as well as I do." 

" Oh no ! You must put it into words," he said. " Oh, really ! I 
couldn't myself." 

" Do you suppose," said I, constraining myself to be very temperate 
and quiet with him, on account of Agnes, " that I regard Miss Wickfield 
otherwise than as a very dear sister ? " 

" Well, Master Copperfield," he replied, "you perceive I am not bound 
to answer that question. You may not, you know. But then, you see, 
you may ! " 

Anything to equal the low cunning of his visage, and of his shadowless 
eyes without the ghost of an eyelash, I never saw. 

" Come, then ! " said I. " For the sake of Miss Wickfield " 

" My Agnes ! " he exclaimed, with a sickly, angular contortion of him- 
self. " Would you be so good as call her Agnes, Master Copperfield ! " 

" For the sake of Agnes Wickfield — Heaven bless her ! " 

" Thank you for that blessing, Master Copperfield ! " he interposed. 

" I will tell you what I should, under any other circumstances, as soon 
have thought of telling to — Jack Ketch." 

" To who, sir ? " said Uriah, stretching out his neck, and shading his 
ear with his hand. 

" To the hangman," I returned. " The most unlikely person I could 
think of," — though his own face had suggested the allusion quite as a 
natural sequence. " I am engaged to another young lady. I hope that 
contents you." 

" Upon your soul ? " said Uriah. 

I was about indignantly to give my assertion the confirmation he 
required, when he caught hold of my hand, and gave it a squeeze. 



406 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Oh, Master Copperfield ! " lie said. " If you had only had the con- 
descension to return my confidence when I poured out the fulness of my 
art, the night I put you so much out of the way by sleeping before your 
sitting-room fire, I never should have doubted you. As it is, F m sure 
I '11 take off mother directly, and only too appy. I know you '11 excuse 
the precautions of affection, won't you ? Y/hat a pity, Master Copper- 
field, that you didn't condescend to return my confidence ! I' m sure 
I gave you every opportunity. But you never have condescended to 
me, as much as I could have wished. I know you have never liked me, as 
I have liked you ! " 

All this time he was squeezing my hand with his damp fishey fingers, 
while I made every effort I decently could to get it away. But I was 
quite unsuccessful. He drew it under the sleeve of his mulberry- 
colored great coat, and I walked on, almost upon compulsion, arm in 
arm with him. 

" Shall we turn ? " said Uriah, by-and-by wheeling me face about 
towards the town, on which the early moon was now shining, silvering 
the distant windows. 

" Before we leave the subject, you ought to understand," said I, 
breaking a pretty long silence, " that I believe Agnes Wickfield to be as 
far above you> and as far removed from all your aspirations, as that moon 
herself!" 

" Peaceful ! Ain't she ! " said Uriah. " Very ! Now confess, Master 
Copperfield, that you havn't liked me quite as I have liked you. All along 
you've thought me too umble now, I shouldn't wonder? " 

" I am not fond of professions of humility," I returned, " or professions 
of anything else." 

" There now ! " said Uriah, looking flabby and lead-coloured in the 
moonlight. " Didn't I know it ! But how little you think of the 
rightful umbleness of a person in my station, Master Copperfield ! Father 
and me was both brought up at a foundation school for boys ; and mother, 
she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of charitable, establishment. 
They taught us all a deal of umbleness — not much else that I know of, 
from morning to night. We was to be umble to this person, and umble 
to that ; and to puff off our caps here, and to make bows there ; and 
always to know our place, and abase ourselves before our betters. And 
we had such a lot of betters ! Father got the monitor-medal by being 
umble. So did I. Father got made a sexton by being umble. He had 
the character, among the gentlefolks, of being such a well-behaved man, 
that they were determined to bring him in. ' Be umble, Uriah,' says 
father to me, ' and you '11 get on. It was what was always being dinned 
into you and me at school ; it 's what goes down best. Be umble,' says 
father, ' and you '11 do ! ' And really it ain't done bad ! " 

It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable 
cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. 
I had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the seed. 

" When I was quite a young boy," said Uriah, " I got to know what 
umbleness did, and I took to it. I ate umble pie with an appetite. 
I stopped at the umble point of my learning, and says I, ' Hold hard ! * 
When you offered to teach me latin, I knew better. ' People like to 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 407 

be above you/ says father, ' keep yourself down.' I am very umble to 
the present moment, Master Copperfield, but I 've got a little power ! " 

And he said all this — I knew, as I saw his face in the moonlight — 
that I might understand he was resolved to recompense himself by using 
his power, I had never doubted his meanness, his craft and malice ; but 
I fully comprehended now, for the first time, what a base, unrelenting, and 
revengeful spirit, must have been engendered by this early, and this long, 
suppression. 

His account of himself was so far attended with an agreeable result, 
that it led to his withdrawing his hand in order that he might have another 
hug of himself under the chin. Once apart from him, I was determined 
to keep apart ; and we walked back, side by side, saying very little more 
by the way. 

Whether his spirits were elevated by the communication I had made 
to him, or by his having indulged in this retrospect, I don't know ; but 
they were raised by some influence. He talked more at dinner than was 
usual with him ; asked his mother (off duty, from the moment of our 
re-entering the house), whether he was not growing too old for a bachelor ; 
and once looked at Agnes so, that I would have given all I had, for leave 
to knock him down. 

When we three males were left alone after dinner, he got into a more 
adventurous state. He had taken little or no wine ; and I presume it was 
the mere insolence of triumph that was upon him, flushed perhaps by the 
temptation my presence furnished to its exhibition. 

I had observed yesterday, that he tried to entice Mr. Wickfield to drink ; 
and, interpreting the look which Agnes had given me as she went out, had 
limited myself to one glass, and then proposed that we should follow her, 
I would have done so again to-day ; but Uriah was too quick for me. 

"We seldom see our present visitor, sir," he said, addressing Mr. 
Wickfield, sitting, such a contrast to him, at the end of the table, " and I 
should propose to give him welcome in another glass or two of wine, if 
you have no objections. Mr. Copperfield, your elth and appiness ! " 

I was obliged to make a show of taking the hand he stretched across to 
me ; and then, with very different emotions, I took the hand of the broken 
gentleman, his partner. 

" Come, fellow partner," said Uriah, " if I may take the liberty, — now, 
suppose you give us something or another appropriate to Copperfield ! " 

I pass over Mr. Wickfield's proposing my aunt, his proposing Mr. Dick, 
his proposing Doctor's Commons, his proposing Uriah, his drinking every- 
thing twice ; his consciousness of his own weakness, the ineffectual effort 
that he made against it ; the struggle between his shame in Uriah's de- 
portment, and his desire to conciliate him ; the manifest exultation with 
which Uriah twisted and turned, and held him up before me. It made 
me sick at heart to see, and my hand recoils from writing it. 

" Come, fellow partner ! " said Uriah, at last, " J '11 give you another 
one, and I umbly ask for bumpers, seeing I intend to make it the divinest 
of her sex." 

Her father had his empty glass in his hand. I saw him set it down, 
look at the picture she was so like, put his hand to his forehead, and 
shrink back in his elbow chair. 



408 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" I 'm an umble individual to give you her elth," proceeded Uriah, 
" but I admire — adore her." 

No physical pain that her father's grey head could have borne, I think 
could have been more terrible to me, than the mental endurance I saw 
compressed now within both his hands. 

" Agnes," said Uriah, either not regarding him, or not knowing what 
the nature of his action was, "Agnes Wickfield is, I am safe to say, the 
divinest of her sex. May I speak out, among friends ? To be her father 
is a proud distinction, but to be her usband — " 

Spare me from ever again hearing such a cry, as that with which her 
father rose up from the table ! 

" What 's the matter ? " said Uriah, turning of a deadly colour. " You 
are not gone mad, after all, Mr. Wickfield, I hope ? If I say, I 've an 
ambition to make your Agnes my Agnes, I have as good a right to it as 
another man. I have a better right to it than any other man ! " 

I had my arms round Mr. Wickfield, imploring him by everything that 
I could think of, oftenest of all by his love for Agnes, to calm himself a 
little. He was mad for the moment ; tearing out his hair, beating his 
head, trying to force me from him and to force himself from me, not 
answering a word, not looking at or seeing any one ; blindly striving 
for he knew not what, his face all staring and distorted — a frightful 
spectacle. 

I conjured him, incoherently, but in the most impassioned manner, not 
to abandon himself to this wildness, but to hear me. I besought him to 
think of Agnes, to connect me with Agnes, to recollect how Agnes and I 
had grown up together, how I honored her and loved her, how she was 
his pride and joy. I tried to bring her idea before him in any form ; I even 
reproached him with not having firmness to spare her the knowledge of such 
a scene as this. I may have effected something, or his wildness may have 
spent itself; but by degrees he struggled less, and began to look at me — 
strangely at first, then with recognition in his eyes. At length he said, " I 
know, Trotwood ! My darling child and you — I know ! But look at him ! " 

He pointed to Uriah, pale and glowering in a corner, evidently very 
much out in his calculations, and taken by surprise. 

" Look at my torturer," he replied. " Before him I have step by step 
abandoned name and reputation, peace and quiet, house and home." 

" I have kept your name and reputation for you, and your peace and 
quiet, and your house and home too," said Uriah, with a sulky, hurried, 
defeated air of compromise. " Don't be foolish, Mr. Wickfield. If I have 
gone a little beyond what you were prepared for, I can go back I suppose ? 
There's no harm done." 

" I looked for single motives in every one," said Mr. Wickfield, " and I 
was satisfied I had bound him to me by motives of interest. But see what 
he is — oh, see what he is ! " 

"You had better stop him, Copperfield, if you can," cried Uriah, 
with his long fore-finger pointing towards me. " He '11 say something 
presently — mind you! — he'll be sorry to have said afterwards, and you '11 
be sony to have heard ! " 

" I '11 say anything ! " cried Mr. Wickfield, with a desperate air. " Why 
should I not be in all the world's power if I am in yours ! " 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 409 

"Mind! I tell you!" said Uriah, continuing to warn me. "If you 
don't stop his mouth, you 're not his friend ! Why shouldn't you be in 
all the world's power, Mr. Wickfield ? Because you have got a daughter. 
You and me know what we know, don't we ? Let sleeping dogs lie — 
who wants to rouse 'em ? I don't. Can't you see I am as umble as 
I can be ? I tell you, if I 've gone too far, I 'm sorry. What would you 
have, sir?" 

"Oh, Trot wood, Trotwood!" exclaimed Mr. Wickfield, wringing his 
hands. " What I have come down to be, since I first saw you in this 
house ! I was on my downward way then, but the dreary, dreary, road I have 
traversed since ! Weak indulgence has ruined me. Indulgence in remem- 
brance, and indulgence in forgetfulness. My natural grief for my child's 
mother turned to disease ; my natural love for my child turned to disease. 
I have infected everything I touched. I have brought misery on what 
I dearly love, I know — You know ! I thought it possible that I could 
truly love one creature in the world, and not love the rest ; I thought 
it possible that I could truly mourn for one creature gone out of the world, 
and not have some part in the grief of all who mourned. Thus the lessons 
of my life have been perverted ! I have preyed on my own morbid coward 
heart, and it has preyed on me. Sordid in my grief, sordid in my love, 
sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both, oh see the ruin 
I am, and hate me, shun me ! " 

He dropped into a chair, and weakly sobbed. The excitement into 
which he had been roused was leaving him. Uriah came out of his 
corner. 

" I don't know all I have done, in my fatuity," said Mr. Wickfield, 
putting out his hands, as if to deprecate my condemnation. " He knows 
best," meaning Uriah Heep, " for he has always been at my elbow, whisper- 
ing me. You see the millstone that he is about my neck. You find him 
in my house, you find him in my business. You heard him, but a little 
time ago. What need have I to say more ! " 

" You haven't need to say so much, nor half so much, nor anything at 
all," observed Uriah, half defiant, and half fawning. " You wouldn't have 
took it up so, if it hadn't been for the wine. You '11 think better of it 
to-morrow, sir. If I have said too much, or more than I meant, what of 
it ? I haven't stood by it ! " 

The door opened, and Agnes, gliding in, without a vestige of colour in 
her face, put her arm round his neck, and steadily said, " Papa, you are 
not well. Come with me ! " He laid his head upon her shoulder, as if 
he were oppressed with heavy shame, and went out with her. Her eyes 
met mine for but an instant, yet I saw how much she knew of what 
had passed. 

" I didn't expect he 'd cut up so rough, Master Copperfield," said 
Uriah. " But it 's nothing. I '11 be friends with him to-morrow. It 's 
for his good. I 'm umbly anxious for his good." 

I gave him no answer, and went upstairs into the quiet room where 
Agnes had so often sat beside me at my books. Nobody came near me until 
late at night. I took up a book, and tried to read. I heard the clocks 
strike twelve, and was still reading, without knowing what I read, when 
Agnes touched me. 



410 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

"You will be going early in the morning, Trotwood. Let us say- 
good bye, now ! " 

She had been weeping, but her face then was so calm and beautiful ! 

" Heaven bless you ! " she said, giving me her hand. 

" Dearest Agnes ! " I returned, "I see you ask me not to speak of 
to-night — but is there nothing to be done ? " 

" There is God to trust in ! " she replied. 

" Can / do nothing — J, who come to you with my poor sorrows ? " 

" And make mine so much lighter," she replied. " Dear Trotwood, no ! " 

" Dear Agnes, 55 I said, " it is presumptuous for me, who am so poor 
in all in which you are so rich — goodness, resolution, all noble qualities — 
to doubt or direct you ; but you know how much I love you, and how 
much I owe you. You will never sacrifice yourself to a mistaken sense 
of duty, Agnes ? " 

More agitated for a moment than I had ever seen her, she took her 
hand from me, and moved a step back. 

" Say you have no such thought, dear Agnes ! Much more than sister ! 
Think of the priceless gift of such a heart as yours, of such a love 
as yours ! " 

Oh ! long, long afterwards, I saw that face rise up before me, with its 
momentary look, not wondering, not accusing, not regretting. Oh, long, 
long afterwards, I saw that look subside, as it did now, into the lovely 
smile, with which she told me she had no fear for herself — I need have 
none for her — and parted from me by the name of Brother, and was 
gone ! 

It was dark in the morning, when I got upon the coach at the inn 
door. The day was just breaking when we were about to start, and then, 
as I sat thinking of her, came struggling up the coach side, through the 
mingled day and night, Uriah's head. 

" Copperfield ! 55 said he, in a croaking whisper, as he hung by the 
iron on the roof, " I thought you'd be glad to hear before you went 
off, that there are no squares broke between us. I've been into his room 
already, and we 've made it all smooth. Why, though I 'm umble, I 'm 
useful to him, you know ; and he understands his interest when he isn't 
in liquor ! What an agreeable man he is, after all, Master Copperfield !" 

I obliged myself to say that I was glad he had made his apology. 

" Oh, to be sure !" said Uriah. "When a person's umble, you know, 
what 's an apology ? So easy ! I say ! I suppose," with a jerk, " you 
have sometimes plucked a pear before it was ripe, Master Copperfield?" 

" I suppose I have, 55 I replied. 

"I did that last night, 55 said Uriah; "but it'll ripen yet ! It only 
wants attending to. I can wait ! " 

Profuse in his farewells, he got down again as the coachman got up. 
For anything I know, he was eating something to keep the raw morning 
air out ; but, he made motions with his mouth as if the pear were ripe 
already, and he were smacking his lips over it. 



OP DAVID COPPERPIELD. 411 



CHAPTER XL. 

THE WANDERER. 

We had a very serious conversation in Buckingham Street that night, 
about the domestic occurrences I have detailed in the last chapter. My 
aunt was deeply interested in them, and walked up and down the room 
with her arms folded, for more than two hours afterwards. Whenever she 
was particularly discomposed, she always performed one of these pedes- 
trian feats; and the amount of her discomposure might always be 
estimated by the duration of her walk. On this occasion she was so 
much disturbed in mind as to find it necessary to open the bed-room 
door, and make a course for herself, comprising the full extent of the 
bed-rooms from wall to wall ; and while Mr. Dick and I sat quietly by 
the fire, she kept passing in and out, along this measured track, at an 
unchanging pace, with the regularity of a clock-pendulum. 

When my aunt and I were left to ourselves by Mr. Dick's going out to 
bed, I sat down to write my letter to the two old ladies. By that time 
she was tired of walking, and sat by the fire with her dress tucked up as 
usual. But instead of sitting in her usual manner, holding her glass upon 
her knee, she suffered it to stand neglected on the chimney-piece ; and, 
resting her left elbow on her right arm, and her chin on her left hand, 
looked thoughtfully at me. As often as I raised my eyes from what 
I was about, I met hers. "I am in the lovingest of tempers, my 
dear," she would assure me with a nod, " but I am fidgetted and 
sorry ! " 

I had been too busy to observe, until after she was gone to bed, that 
she had left her night-mixture, as she always called it, untasted on the 
chimney-piece. She came to her door, with even more than her usual 
affection of manner, when I knocked to acquaint her with this discovery; 
but only said, " I have not the heart to take it, Trot, to-night," and shook 
her head, and went in again. 

She read my letter to the two old ladies, in the morning, and approved 
of it. 1 posted it, and had nothing to do then, but wait, as patiently as 
I could, for the reply. I was still in this state of expectation, and had 
been, for nearly a week ; when I left the Doctor's one snowy night, to 
walk home. 

It had been a bitter day, and a cutting north-east wind had blown for 
some time. The wind had gone down with the light, and so the snow 
had come on. It was a heavy, settled fall, I recollect, in great flakes ; and 
it lay thick. The noise of wheels and tread of people were as hushed, as 
if the streets had been strewn that depth with feathers. 

My shortest way home, — and I naturally took the shortest way on such 
a night — was through Saint Martin's Lane. Now, the church which 
gives its name to the lane, stood in a less free situation at that time ; 
there being no open space before it, and the lane winding down to the 



412 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Strand. As I passed the steps of the portico, I encountered, at the 
corner, a woman's face. It looked in mine, passed across the narrow- 
lane, and disappeared. I knew it. I hact seen it somewhere. But I could 
not remember where. I had some association with it, that struck upon 
my heart directly ; but I was thinking of anything else when it came 
upon me, and was confused. 

On the steps of the church, there was the stooping figure of a man, 
who had put down some burden on the smooth snow, to adjust it ; my 
seeing the face, and my seeing him, were simultaneous. I don't think 
I had stopped in my surprise ; but, in any case, as I went on, he rose, 
turned, and came down towards me. I stood face to face with Mr. 
Peggotty ! 

Then I remembered the woman. It was Martha, to whom Emily had 
given the money that night in the kitchen. Martha Endell — side by side 
with whom, he would not have seen his dear niece, Ham had told me, for 
all the treasures wrecked in the sea. 

We shook hands heartily. At first neither of us could speak a word. 

" Mas'r Davy ! " he said, griping me tight," it do my art good to see 
you, sir. Well met, well met ! " 

" Well met, my dear old friend ! " said I. 

"I had my thowts o' coming to make inquiration for you, sir, to-night," 
he said, " but knowing as your aunt was living along wi' you — for I 've 
been down yonder — Yarmouth way — I was afeerd it was too late. I 
should have come early in the morning, sir, afore going away." 

" Again ? " said I. 

" Yes, sir," he replied, patiently shaking his head, ' c I 'm away 
to-morrow." 

" Where were you going now?" I asked. 

" Well ! " he replied, shaking the snow out of his long hair, " I was 
a going to turn in somewheers." 

In those days there was a side-entrance to the stable-yard of the Golden 
Cross, the inn so memorable to me in connexion with his misfortune, nearly 
opposite to where we stood. I pointed out the gateway, put my arm 
through his, and we went across. Two or three public-rooms opened out 
of the stable-yard ; and looking into one of them, and finding it empty, 
and a good fire burning, I took him in there. 

When I saw him in the light, I observed, not only that his hair was 
long and ragged, but that his face was burnt dark by the sun. He was 
greyer, the lines in his face and forehead were deeper, and he had every 
appearance of having toiled and wandered through all varieties of weather ; 
but he looked very strong, and like a man upheld by stedfastness of 
purpose, whom nothing could tire out. He shook the snow from his hat 
and clothes, and brushed it away from his face, while I was inwardly 
making these remarks. As he sate down opposite to me at a table, with 
his back to the door by which we had entered, he put out his rough hand 
again, and grasped mine warmly. 

"I'll tell you, Mas'r Davy," he said, — "wheer all I've been, and 
what-all we 've heerd. I 've been fur, and we 've heerd little ; but 
I '11 tell you ! " 

I rang the bell for something hot to drink. He would have nothing 
younger than ale ; and while it was being brought, and being warmed at 



I 




c77 



Qy/^fy ' '. '■:•'■, ,;->', . ' . 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 413 

the fire, he sat thinking. There was a fine, massive gravity in his face, I 
did not venture to disturb. 

" When she was a child," he said, lifting up his head soon after we 
were left alone, " she used to talk to me a deal about the sea, and about 
them coasts where the sea got to be dark blue, and to lay a shining and 
a shining in the sun. I thowt, odd times, as her father being drownded 
made her think on it so much. I doen't know, you see, but maybe she 
believed — or hoped — he had drifted out to them parts, where the flowers 
is always a blowing, and the country bright.". 

" It is likely to have been a childish fancy," I replied. 

" When she was — lost," said Mr. Peggotty, " I know'd in my mind, as 
he would take her to them countries. I know'd in my mind, as he'd 
have told her wonders of 'em, and how she was to be a lady theer, and how 
he got her listen to him first, along o'sech like. When we see his 
mother, I know'd quite well as I was right. I went across-channel to 
France, and landed theer, as if I 'd fell down from the sky." 

I saw the door move, and the snow drift in. I saw it move a little 
more, and a hand softly interpose to keep it open. 

"I found out a English gentleman as was in authority," said Mr. 
Peggotty, " and told him I was a going to seek my niece. He got me them 
papers as I wanted fur to carry me through — I doen't rightly know how 
they 're called — and he would have give me money, but that I was thankful 
to have no need on. I thank him kind, for all he done, I 'm sure ! * I 've 
wrote afore you,' he says to me, ' and I shall speak to many as will come 
that way, and many will know you, fur distant from here, when you 're a 
travelling alone.' I told him, best as I was able, what my gratitoode was, 
and went away through Prance." 

" Alone, and on foot ? " said I. 

" Mostly a-foot," he rejoined; " sometimes in carts along with people 
going to market ; sometimes in empty coaches. Many mile a day a-foot, 
and often with some poor soldier or another, travelling to see his friends. 
I couldn't talk to him," said Mr. Peggoty, " nor he to me ; but we was 
company for one another, too, along the dusty roads." 

I should have known that by his friendly tone. 

" When I come to any town," he pursued, " I found the inn, and waited 
about the yard till some one turned up (some one mostly did) as know'd 
English. Then I told how that I was on my way to seek my niece, and 
they told me what manner of gentlefolks was in the house, and I waited to 
see any as seemed like her, going in or out. When it warn't Em'ly, I went 
on agen. By little and little, when I come to a new village or that, among 
the poor people, I found they know'd about me. They would set me down 
at their cottage doors, and give me what-not fur to eat and drink, and 
show me where to sleep ; and many a woman, Mas'r Davy, as has had a 
daughter of about Em'ly's age, I've found a-waiting for me, at Our 
Saviour's Cross outside the village, fur to do me sim'lar kindnesses. 
Some has had daughters as was dead. And God only knows how good 
them mothers was to me ! " 

It was Martha at the door. I saw her haggard, listening face dis- 
tinctly. My dread was lest he should turn his head, and see her too, 

" They would often put their children — partic'lar their little girls," 
said Mr. Peggotty, " upon my knee ; and many a time you might have seen 



414 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

me sitting at their doors, when night was coming on, a'most as if they'd 
been my Darling's children. Oh, my Darling ! " 

Overpowered by sudden grief, he sobbed aloud. I laid my trembling 
hand upon the hand he put before his face. " Thankee, sir," he said, 
" don't take no notice." 

In a very little while he took his hand away and put it in his breast, 
and went on with his story. 

" They often walked with me," he said, " in the morning, maybe a 
mile or two upon my road ; and when we parted, and I said, ' I'm very 
thankful to you ! God bless you ! ' they always seemed to understand, 
and answered pleasant. At last I come to the sea. It warn't hard, you 
may suppose, for a seafaring man like me to work his way over to Italy. 
When I got theer, I wandered on as I had done afore. The people was 
just as good to me, and I should have gone from town to town, maybe 
the country through, but that I got news of her being seen among them 
Swiss mountains yonder. One as know'd his servant see 'em there, all 
three, and told me how they travelled, and where they was. I made for 
them mountains, Mas'r Davy, day and night. Ever so fur as I went, ever 
so fur the mountains seemed to shift away from me. But I come up with 
'em, and I crossed 'em. When I got nigh the place as I had been told of, I 
began to think within my own self, ' What shall I do when I see her ? ' " 

The listening face, insensible to the inclement night, still drooped at the 
door, and the hands begged me — prayed me — not to cast it forth. 

" I never doubted her," said Mr. Peggotty. " No ! not a bit ! On'y 
let her see my face — on'y let her heer my voice — on'y let my stanning 
still afore her bring to her thoughts the home she had fled away from, 
and the child she had been — and if she had growed to be a royal lady, she'd 
have fell down at my feet ! I know'd it well ! Many a time in my sleep had 
I heerd her cry out, ' Uncle ! ' and seen her fall like death afore me. Many 
a time in my sleep had I raised her up, and whispered to her,' Em'ly my 
dear, I am come fur to bring forgiveness, and to take you home ! ' ' 

He stopped and shook his head, and went on with a sigh. 

" He was nowt to me now. Em'ly was all. I bought a country dress to 
put upon her ; and I know'd that, once found, she would walk beside me over 
them stony roads, go where I would, and never, never, leave me more. To 
put that dress upon her, and to cast off what she wore — to take her on 
my arm again, and wander towards home — to stop sometimes upon the 
road, and heal her bruised feet and her worse-bruised heart — was all 
that I thowt of now. I doen't believe I should have done so much as 
look at him. But, Mas'r Davy, it warn't to be — not yet ! I was too 
late, and they was gone. Wheer, I couldn't learn. Some said heer, some 
said theer. I travelled heer, and I travelled theer, but I found no Em'ly, 
and I travelled home." 

" How long ago ? " I asked. 

" A matter o' fower days," said Mr. Peggotty. " I sighted the old boat 
arter dark, and the light a shining in the winder. When I come nigh and 
looked in through the glass, I see the faithful creetur Missis Gummidge 
sittin' by the fire, as we had fixed upon, alone. I called out, ' Doen't be 
afeerd ! It 's Dan'l ! ' and I went in. I never could have thowt the 
old boat would have been so strange ! " 

Prom some pocket in his breast, he took out, with a very careful hand, 



OP DAVID COPPERPIELD. 415 

a small paper bundle containing two or three letters or little packets, which 
he laid upon the table. 

"This first one come," he said, selecting it from the rest, " afore I 
had been gone a week. A fifty pound Bank note, in a sheet of paper, 
directed to me, and put underneath the door in the night. She tried to 
hide her writing, but she couldn't hide it from Me ! " 

He folded up the note again, with great patience and care, in exactly the 
same form, and laid it on one side. 

" This come to Missis Gummidge," he said, opening another, " two or 
three months ago." After looking at it for some moments, he gave it to 
me, and added in a low voice, " Be so good as read it, sir." 

I read as follows : 

* Oh what will you feel when you see this writing, and know it comes from my 
wicked hand ! But try, try — not for my sake, but for uncle's goodness, try to 
let your heart soften to me, only for a little little time ! Try, pray do, to relent 
towards a miserable girl, and write down on a bit of paper whether he is well, 
and what he said about me before you left off ever naming me among yourselves 
— and whether, of a night, when it is my old time of coming home, you ever see 
him look as if he thought of one he used to love so dear. Oh, my heart is breaking 
when I think about it ! I am kneeling down to you, begging and praying you not 
to be as hard with me as I deserve — as I well, well, know I deserve — but to 
be so gentle and so good, as to write down something of him, and to send it to 
me. You need not call me Little, you need not call me by the name I have dis- 
graced ; but oh, listen to my agony, and have mercy on me so far as to write me 
some word of uncle, never, never to be seen in this world by my eyes again ! 

" Dear, if your heart is hard towards me — justly hard, I know — but, Listen, if 
it is hard, dear, ask him I have wronged the most — him whose wife I was to have 
been — before you quite decide against my poor poor prayer ! If he should be so 
compassionate as to say that you might write something for me to read — I think 
he would, oh, I think he would, if you would only ask him, for he always was so 
brave and so forgiving — tell him then (but not else), that when I hear the wind 
blowing at night, I feel as if it was passing angrily from seeing him and uncle, 
and was going up to God against me. Tell him that if I was to die to-morrow 
(and oh, if I was fit, I would be so glad to die ! ) I would bless him and uncle with 
my last words, and pray for his happy home with my last breath ! " 

Some money was inclosed in this letter also. Five pounds. It was 
untouched like the previous sum, and he refolded it in the same way. 
Detailed instructions were added relative to the address of a reply, which, 
although they betrayed the intervention of several hands, and made it 
difficult to arrive at any very probable conclusion in reference to her place 
of concealment, made it at least not unlikely that she had written from 
that spot where she was stated to have been seen. 

" What answer was sent ? " I inquired of Mr. Peggotty. 

" Missis Gummidge," he returned, " not being a good scholar, sir, Ham 
kindly drawed it out, and she made a copy on it. They told her I was 
gone to seek her, and what my parting words was." 

" Is that another letter in your hand ? " said I. 

" It 's money, sir," said Mr. Peggotty, unfolding it a little way. " Ten 
pound, you see. And wrote inside, ' From a true friend,' like the first. 
But the first was put underneath the door, and this come by the post, day 
afore yesterday. I 'm a going to seek her at the post-mark." 

He showed it to me. It was a town on the Upper Bhine. He had 



416 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

found out, at Yarmouth, some foreign dealers who knew that country, and 
they had drawn him a rude map on paper, which he could very well under- 
stand. He laid it between us on the table ; and, with his chin resting 
on one hand, tracked his course upon it with the other. 

I asked him how Ham was ? He shook his head. 

" He works," he said, " as bold as a man can. His name 's as good, in 
all that part, as any man's is, anywheres in the wureld. Anyone's hand is 
ready to help him, you understand, and his is ready to help them. He 's 
never been heerd fur to complain. But my sister's belief is ('twixt ourselves) 
as it has cut him deep." 

" Poor fellow, I can believe it ! " 

" He ain't no care, Mas'r Davy," said Mr. Peggotty in a solemn whisper 
— " keinder no care no-how for his life. When a man's wanted for rough 
service in rough weather, he 's theer. When there 's hard duty to be 
done with danger in it, he steps forward afore all his mates. And yet he 's 
as gentle as any child. There ain't a child in Yarmouth that doen't know 
him." 

He gathered up the letters thoughtfully, smoothing them with his hand; 
put them into their little bundle ; and placed it tenderly in his breast 
again. The face was gone from the door. I still saw the snow drifting 
in ; but nothing else was there. 

" Well ! " he said, looking to his bag, " having seen you to-night, Mas'r 
Davy (and that doos me good !) I shall away betimes to-morrow morn- 
ing. You have seen what I've got heer ; " putting his hand on where 
the little packet lay ; " all that troubles me is, to think that any harm might 
come to me, afore that money was give back. If I was to die, and it was 
lost, or stole, or elseways made away with, and it was never knowed 
by him but what I 'd took it, I believe the t'other wureld wouldn't hold 
me ! I believe I must come back! " 

He rose, and I rose too ; we grasped each other by the hand again, 
before going out. 

" I 'd go ten thousand mile," he' said, " I 'd go till I dropped dead, to 
lay that money down afore him. If I do that, and find my Em'ly, I'm 
content. If I doen't find her, maybe she '11 come to hear, sometime, as her 
loving uncle only ended his search for her when he ended his life ; and if 
I know her, even that will turn her home at last ! " 

As we went out into the rigorous night, I saw the lonely figure flit 
away before us. I turned him hastily on some pretence, and held him in 
conversation until it was gone. 

He spoke of a traveller's house on the Dover road, where he knew he 
could find a clean, plain lodging for the night. I went with him over 
Westminster Bridge, and parted from him on the Surrey shore. Every- 
thing seemed, to my imagination, to be hushed in reverence for him, as 
he resumed his solitary journey through the snow. 

I returned to the inn yard, and, impressed by my remembrance of the 
face, looked awfully around for it. It was not there. The snow had 
covered our late footprints ; my new track was the only one to be seen ; 
and even that began to die away (it snowed so fast) as I looked back over 
my shoulder. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 417 



CHAPTER XLI. 

dora's aunts. 

At last, an answer came from the two old ladies. They presented 
their compliments to Mr. Copperfield, and informed him that they had given 
his letter their best consideration, " with a view to the happiness of both 
parties " — which I thought rather an alarming expression, not only because 
of the use they had made of it in relation to the family difference before- 
mentioned, but because I had (and have all my life) observed that conven- 
tional phrases are a sort of fireworks, easily let off, and liable to take a great 
variety of shapes and colors not at all suggested by their original form . The 
Misses Spenlow added that they begged to forbear expressing, " through 
the medium of correspondence," an opinion on the subject of Mr. Cop- 
perfield's communication ; but that if Mr. Copperfield would do them the 
favor to call, upon a certain day, (accompanied, if he thought proper, by 
a confidential friend), they would be happy to hold some conversation on 
the subject. 

To this favor, Mr. Copperfield immediately replied, with his respectful 
compliments, that he would have the honor of waiting on the Misses 
Spenlow, at the time appointed ; accompanied, in accordance with their 
kind permission, by his friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner Temple. 
Having dispatched which missive, Mr. Copperfield fell into a condition of 
strong nervous agitation; and so remained until the day arrived. 

It was a great augmentation of my uneasiness to be bereaved, at this 
eventful crisis, of the inestimable services of Miss Mills. But Mr. Mills, 
who was always doing something or other to annoy me — or I felt as if he 
were, which was the same thing — had brought his conduct to a climax, 
by taking it into his head that he would go to India. Why should he go 
to India, except to harass me ? To be sure he had nothing to do with 
any other part of the world, and had a good deal to do with that part ; 
being entirely in the India trade, whatever that was (I had floating 
dreams myself concerning golden shawls and elephant's teeth) ; having 
been at Calcutta in his youth ; and designing now to go out there 
again, in the capacity of resident partner. But this was nothing to me. 
However, it was so much to him that for India he was bound, and 
Julia with him ; and Julia went into the country to take leave of her 
relations ; and the house was put into a perfect suit of bills, announcing' 
that it was to be let or sold, and that the furniture (Mangle and all) was 
to be taken at a valuation. So, here was another earthquake of which I 
became the sport, before I had recovered from the shock of its predecessor ! 

I was in several minds how to dress myself on the important day ; 
being divided between my desire to appear to advantage, and my appre- 
hensions of putting on anything that might impair my severely practical 
character in the eyes of the Misses Spenlow. I endeavoured to hit a 
happy medium between these two extremes ; my aunt approved the result ; 

E E 



418 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

and Mr. Dick threw one of his shoes after Traddles and me, for luck, as 
we went down-stairs. 

Excellent fellow as I knew Traddles to be, and warmly attached to him 
as I was, I could not help wishing, on that delicate occasion, that he had 
never contracted the habit of brushing his hair so very upright. It gave 
him a surprised look — not to say a hearth-broomy kind of expression 
— which, my apprehensions whispered, might be fatal to us. 

I took the liberty of mentioning it to Traddles, as we were walking 
to Putney; and saying that if he would smooth it down a little — 

" My dear Copperfield," said Traddles, lifting off his hat, and rubbing 
his hair all kinds of ways, " nothing would give me greater pleasure. But 
it won't." 

" Won't be smoothed down ? " said I. 

"No," said Traddles. " Nothing will induce it. If I was to carry a 
half-hundred -weight upon it, all the way to Putney, it would be up again 
the moment the weight was taken off. You have no idea what obstinate 
hair mine is, Copperfield. I am quite a fretful porcupine." 

I was a little disappointed, I must confess, but thoroughly charmed by 
his good-nature too. I told him how I esteemed his good-nature ; and 
said that his hair must have taken all the obstinacy out of his character, 
for he had none. 

" Oh ! " returned Traddles, laughing, " I assure you, it 's quite an old 
story, my unfortunate hair. My uncle's wife couldn't bear it. She said 
it exasperated her. It stood very much in my way, too, when I first fell 
in love with Sophy. Very much ! " 

"Did she object to it ?'" 

" She didn't," rejoined Traddles ; " but her eldest sister — the one that 's 
the Beauty — quite made game of it, I understand. In fact, all the sisters 
laugh at it." 

" Agreeable ! " said I. 

"Yes," returned Traddles with perfect innocence, "it's a joke for 
us. They pretend that Sophy has a lock of it in her desk, and is obliged 
to shut it in a clasped book, to keep it down. We laugh about it." 

"By-the-bye, my dear Traddles," said I, "your experience may suggest 
something to me. When you became engaged to the young lady whom 
you have just mentioned, did you make a regular proposal to her family ? 
Was there anything like — what we are going through to-day, for instance ? " 
I added, nervously. 

" Why," replied Traddles, on whose attentive face a thoughtful shade 
had stolen, " it was rather a painful transaction, Copperfield, in my case. 
You see, Sophy being of so much use in the family, none of them could 
endure the thought of her ever being married. Indeed, they had quite 
settled among themselves that she never was to be married, and they 
called her the old maid. Accordingly, when I mentioned it, with the 
greatest precaution, to Mrs. Crewler — " 

" The mamma ? " said I. 

" The mamma," said Traddles — " Eeverend Horace Crewler — when I 
mentioned it with every possible precaution to Mrs. Crewler, the effect 
upon her was such that she gave a scream and became insensible. I 
couldn't approach the subject again, for months." 



OF DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 419 

" You did at last ? " said I. 

" Well, the Keverend Horace did," said Traddles. " He is an excellent 
man, most exemplary in every way ; and he pointed out to her that she 
ought, as a Christian, to reconcile herself to the sacrifice (especially as it 
was so uncertain), and to bear no uncharitable feeling towards me. As 
to myself, Copperfield, I give you my word, I felt a perfect bird of prey 
towards the family." 

" The sisters took your part, I hope, Traddles ? " 

"Why, I can't say they did," he returned. "When we had compara- 
tively reconciled Mrs. Crewler to it, we had to break it to Sarah. You 
recollect my mentioning Sarah, as the one that has something the matter 
with her spine ? " 

"Perfectly!" 

" She clenched both her hands," said Traddles, looking at me in 
dismay; "shut her eyes; turned lead-color; became perfectly stiff; and 
took nothing for two days, but toast-and-water administered with a 
teaspoon." 

" What a very unpleasant girl, Traddles ! " I remarked. 

" Oh, I beg your pardon, Copperfield ! " said Traddles. " She is a 
very charming girl, but she has a great deal of feeling. In fact, they all 
have. Sophy told me afterwards, that the self-reproach she underwent 
while she was in attendance upon Sarah, no words could describe. I 
know it must have been severe, by my own feelings, Copperfield ; which 
were like a criminal's. After Sarah was restored, we still had to break it 
to the other eight ; and it produced various effects upon them of a most 
pathetic nature. The two little ones, whom Sophy educates, have only 
just left off de-testing me." 

" At any rate, they are all reconciled to it now, I hope ? " said I. 

" Ye — yes, I should say they were, on the whole, resigned to it," said 
Traddles, doubtfully. "The fact is, we avoid mentioning the subject; 
and my unsettled prospects and indifferent circumstances are a great con- 
solation to them. There will be a deplorable scene, whenever we are 
married. It will be much more like a funeral, than a wedding. And 
they '11 all hate me for taking her away ! " 

His honest face, as he looked at me with a serio-comic shake of his head, 
impresses me more in the remembrance than it did in the reality, for I 
was by this time in a state of such excessive trepidation and wandering of 
mind, as to be quite unable to fix my attention on anything. On our 
approaching the house where the Misses Spenlow lived, I was at such a 
discount in respect of my personal looks and presence of mind, that 
Traddles proposed a gentle stimulant in the form of a glass of ale. This 
having been administered at a neighbouring public-house, he conducted 
me, with tottering steps, to the Misses Spenlow's door. 

I had a vague sensation of being, as it were, on view, when the maid 
opened it ; and of wavering, somehow, across a hall with a weather-glass in 
it, into a quiet little drawing-room on the ground-floor, commanding a neat 
garden. Also of sitting down here, on a sofa, and seeing Traddles's hair 
start up, now his hat was removed, like one of those obtrusive little 
figures made of springs, that fly out of fictitious snuff-boxes when the lid 
is taken off. Also of hearing an old-fashioned clock ticking away on the 

e e 2 



420 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

cliimney-piece, and trying to make it keep time to the jerking of my 
heart, — which it wouldn't. Also of looking round the room for any si«-n 
of Dora, and seeing none. Also of thinking that Jip once barked in the 
distance, and was instantly choked by somebody. Ultimately I found 
myself backing Traddles into the fire-place, and bowing in great confusion 
to two dry little elderly ladies, dressed in black, and each looking wonder- 
fully like a preparation in chip or tan of the late Mr. Spenlow. 

" Pray," said one of the two little ladies, " be seated." 

When I had done tumbling over Traddles, and had sat upon something 
which was not a cat — my first seat was — I so far recovered my sight, as- 
to perceive that Mr. Spenlow had evidently been the youngest of the 
family ; that there was a disparity of six or eight years between the two 
sisters ; and that the younger appeared to be the manager of the con- 
ference, inasmuch as she had my letter in her hand — so familiar as it 
looked to me, and yet so odd ! — and was referring to it through an eye- 
glass. They were dressed alike, but this sister wore her dress with a more 
youthful air than the other ; and perhaps had a trifle more frill, or tucker, 
or brooch, or bracelet, or some little thing of that kind, which made her 
look more lively. They were both upright in their carriage, formal, pre- 
cise, composed, and quiet. The sister who had not my letter, had her 
arms crossed on her breast, and resting on each other, like an Idol. 

" Mr. Copperfield, I believe," said the sister who had got my letter, 
addressing herself to Traddles. 

This was a frightful beginning. Traddles had to indicate that I was 
Mr. Copperfield, and 5 had to lay claim to myself, and they had to divest 
themselves of a preconceived opinion that Traddles was Mr. Copperfield, 
and altogether we were in a nice condition. To improve it, we all distinctly 
heard Jip give two short barks, and receive another choke. 

" Mr. Copperfield ! " said the sister with the letter. 

I did something — bowed, I suppose — and was all attention, when the 
other sister struck in. 

"My sister Lavinia," said she, "being conversant with matters of this 
nature, will state what we consider most calculated to promote the happi- 
ness of both parties.", 

I discovered afterwards that Miss Lavinia was an authority in affairs 
of the heart, by reason of there having anciently existed a certain Mr. 
Pidger, who played short whist, and was supposed to have been enamoured 
of her. My private opinion is, that this was entirely a gratuitous assump- 
tion, and that Pidger was altogether innocent of any such sentiments — to 
which he had never given any sort of expression that I could ever hear of. 
Both Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa had a superstition, however, that 
he would have declared his passion, if he had not been cut short in 
his youth (at about sixty) by over-drinking his constitution, and over- 
doing an attempt to set it right again by swilling Bath water. They 
had a lurking suspicion even, that he died of secret love ; though I must 
say there was a picture of him in the house with a damask nose, which 
concealment did not appear to have ever preyed upon. 

" We will not," said Miss Lavinia, " enter on the past history of this 
matter. Our poor brother Francis's death has cancelled that." 

" We had not," said Miss Clarissa, " been in the habit of frequent 







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//u$£4 Jy^v 



#iw. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 421 

association with our brother Francis ; but there was no decided division or 
disunion between us. Francis took his road ; we took ours. We consi- 
dered it conducive to the happiness of all parties that it should be so. 
And it was so." 

Each of the sisters leaned a little forward to speak, shook her head after 
speaking, and became upright again when silent. Miss Clarissa never 
moved her arms. She sometimes played tunes upon them with her fingers 
— minuets and inarches I should think — but never moved them. 

" Our niece's position, or supposed position, is much changed by our 
brother Francis's death," said Miss Lavinia ; " and therefore we consider 
our brother's opinions as regarded her position as being changed too. We 
have no reason to doubt, Mr. Copperfield, that you are a young gentleman 
possessed of good qualities and honorable character ; or that you have an 
affection — or are fully persuaded that you have an affection — for our niece." 

I replied, as I usually did whenever I had a chance, that nobody had 
•ever loved anybody else as I loved Dora. Traddles came to my assistance 
with a confirmatory murmur. 

Miss Lavinia was going onto make some rejoinder, when Miss Clarissa, 
who appeared to be incessantly beset by a desire to refer to her brother 
Francis, struck in again : 

" If Dora's mamma," she said, " when she married our brother 
Francis, had at once said that there was not room for the family at the 
dinner-table, it would have been better for the happiness of all parties." 

" Sister Clarissa," said Miss Lavinia. " Perhaps we needn't mind 
that now." 

"Sister Lavinia," said Miss Clarissa, "it belongs to the subject. 
With your branch of the subject, on which alone you are competent to 
speak, I should not think of interfering. On this branch of the subject I 
have a voice and an opinion. It would have been better for the happiness 
of all parties, if Dora's mamma, when she married our brother Francis, 
had mentioned plainly what her intentions were. We should then have 
known what we had to expect. We should have said ' pray do not invite 
us, at any time ; ' and all possibility of misunderstanding would have been 
avoided." 

When Miss Clarissa had shaken her head, Miss Lavinia resumed : 
again referring to my letter through her eye-glass. They both had little 
bright round twinkling eyes, by the way, which were like birds' eyes. 
They were not unlike birds, altogether ; having a sharp, brisk, sudden 
manner, and a little short, spruce way of adjusting themselves, like canaries. 

Miss Lavinia, as I have said, resumed : 

" You ask permission of my sister Clarissa and myself, Mr. Copperfield, 
to visit here, as the accepted suitor of our niece." 

" If our brother Francis," said Miss Clarissa, breaking out again, 
if I may call anything so calm a breaking out, " wished to surround 
himself with an atmosphere of Doctors' Commons, and of Doctors' 
Commons only, what right or desire had we to object ? None, I am sure. 
We have ever been far from wishing to obtrude ourselves on any one. 
But why not say so ? Let our brother Francis and his wife have their 
society. Let my sister Lavinia and myself have our society. We can 
find it for ourselves, I hope ! " 



422 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

As this appeared to be addressed toTraddles and me, both Traddles and 
I made some sort of reply. Traddles was inandible. I think I observed, 
myself, that it was highly creditable to all concerned. I don't in the 
least know what I meant. 

" Sister Lavinia," said Miss Clarissa, having now relieved her mind, 
" you can go on, my dear." 

Miss Lavinia proceeded : 

" Mr. Copperfield, my sister Clarissa and I have been very careful 
indeed in considering this letter ; and we have not considered it without 
finally showing it to our niece, and discussing it with our niece. We have 
no doubt that you think you like her very much." 

" Think, ma'am," I rapturously began, " oh ! " 

But Miss, Clarissa giving me a look (just like a sharp canary), as 
requesting that I would not interrupt the oracle, I begged pardon. 

" Affection," said Miss Lavinia, glancing at her sister for corroboration, 
which she gave in the form of a little nod to every clause, " mature 
affection, homage, devotion, does not easily express itself. Its voice is 
low. It is modest and retiring, it lies in ambush, waits and waits. 
Such is the mature fruit. Sometimes a life glides away, and finds it still 
ripening in the shade." 

Of course I did not understand then that this was an allusion to her 
supposed experience of the stricken Pidger ; but I saw, from the gravity 
with which Miss Clarissa nodded her head, that great weight was attached 
to these words. 

" The light — for I call them, in comparison with such sentiments, the 
light — inclinations of very young people," pursued Miss Lavinia, " are 
dust, compared to rocks. It is owing to the difficulty of knowing 
whether they are likely to endure or have any real foundation, that my 
sister Clarissa and myself have been very undecided how to act, 
Mr. Copperfield, and Mr. " 

" Traddles," said my friend, finding himself looked at. 

" I beg pardon. Of the Inner Temple, I believe ? " said Miss Clarissa, 
again glancing at my letter. 

Traddles said, " Exactly so," and became pretty red in the face. 

Now, although I had not received any express encouragement as yet, I 
fancied that I saw in the two little sisters, and particularly in Miss Lavinia, 
an intensified enjoyment of this new and fruitful subject of domestic 
interest, a settling down to make the most of it, a disposition to pet it, in 
which there was a good bright ray of hope. I thought I perceived that 
Miss Lavinia would have uncommon satisfaction in superintending two 
young lovers, like Dora and me; and that Miss Clarissa would have 
hardly less satisfaction in seeing her superintend us, and in chiming 
in with her own particular department of the subject whenever that 
impulse was strong upon her. This gave me courage to protest 
most vehemently that I loved Dora better than I could tell, or any 
one believe ; that all my friends knew how I loved her ; that my aunt, 
Agnes, Traddles, every one who knew me, knew how I loved her, and how 
earnest my love had made me. For the truth of this, I appealed to 
Traddles. And Traddles, firing up as if he were plunging into a 
Parliamentary Debate, really did come out nobly : confirming me in good 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 423 

round terms v and in a plain sensible practical manner, that evidently made 
a favorable impression. 

" I speak, if I may presume to say so, as one who has some little 
experience of such things," said Traddles, " being myself engaged to a 
young lady — one of ten, down in Devonshire — and seeing no probability, 
at present, of our engagement coming to a termination." 

" You may be able to confirm what I have said, Mr. Traddles," 
observed Miss Lavinia, evidently taking a new interest in him, " of the 
affection that is modest and retiring ; that waits and waits ? " 

*' Entirely, ma'am," said Traddles. 

Miss Clarissa looked at Miss Lavinia, and shook her head gravely. 
Miss Lavinia looked consciously at Miss Clarissa, and heaved a little sigh. 

" Sister Lavinia," said Miss Clarissa, " take my smelling-bottle." 

Miss Lavinia revived herself with a few whiffs of aromatic vinegar — 
Traddles and I looking on with great solicitude the while ; and then went 
on to say, rather faintly : 

" My sister and myself have been in great doubt, Mr. Traddles, what 
course we ought to take in reference to the likings, or imaginary likings, 
of such very young people as your friend Mr. Copperfield, and our niece." 

" Our brother Francis's child," remarked Miss Clarissa. " If our brother 
Francis's wife had found it convenient in her life-time (though she had an 
unquestionable right to act as she thought best) to invite the family to 
her dinner-table, we might have known our brother Francis's child better 
at the present moment. Sister Lavinia, proceed." 

Miss Lavinia turned my letter, so as to bring the superscription towards 
herself, and referred through her eye-glass to some orderly-looking notes 
she had made on that part of it. 

" It seems to us," said she, " prudent, Mr. Traddles, to bring these feel- 
ings to the test of our own observation. At present we know nothing of 
them, and are not in a situation to judge how much reality there may be 
in them. Therefore we are inclined so far to accede to Mr. Copperfield's 
proposal, as to admit his visits here." 

" I shall never, dear ladies," I exclaimed, relieved of an immense load 
of apprehension, " forget your kindness ! " 

"But," pursued Miss Lavinia, — "but, we would prefer to regard those 
visits, Mr. Traddles, as made, at present, to us. We must guard ourselves 
from recognising any positive engagement between Mr. Copperfield and 
our niece, until we have had an opportunity — " 

" Until you have had an opportunity, sister Lavinia," said Miss Clarissa. 

" Be it so," assented Miss Lavinia, with a sigh, — " until I have had an 
opportunity of observing them." 

" Copperfield," said Traddles, turning to me, " you feel, I am sure, that 
nothing could be more reasonable or considerate." 

" Nothing ! " cried I. " I am deeply sensible of it." 

" In this position of affairs," said Miss Lavinia, again referring to her 
notes, " and admitting his visits on this understanding only, we must 
require from Mr. Copperfield a distinct assurance, on his word of honor, 
that no communication of any kind shall take place between him and our 
niece without our knowledge. That no project whatever shall be enter- 
tained with regard to our niece, without being first submitted to us — " 



424 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" To you, sister Lavinia," Miss Clarissa interposed. 

"Beit so, Clarissa! " assented Miss Lavinia resignedly — "to me — and 
receiving our concurrence. We must make this a most express and serious 
stipulation, not to be broken on any account. We wished Mr. Copperfield 
to be accompanied by some confidential friend to-day," with an inclination 
of her head towards Traddles, who bowed, " in order that there might 
be no doubt or misconception on this subject. If Mr. Copperfield, or if 
you, Mr. Traddles, feel the least scruple, in giving this promise, I beg you 
to take time to consider it." 

I exclaimed, in a state of high ecstatic fervor, that not a moment's 
consideration could be necessary. I bound myself by the required promise, 
in a most impassioned manner ; called upon Traddles to witness it ; and 
denounced myself as the most atrocious of characters if I ever swerved 
from it in the least degree. 

" Stay ! " said Miss Lavinia, holding up her hand ; " we resolved, before 
we had the pleasure of receiving you two gentlemen, to leave you alone for 
a quarter of an hour, to consider this point. You will allow us to retire." 

It was in vain for me to say that no consideration was necessary. They 
persisted in withdrawing for the specified time. Accordingly, these little 
birds hopped out with great dignity; leaving me to receive the congra- 
tulations of Traddles, and to feel as if I were translated to regions of 
exquisite happiness. Exactly at the expiration of the quarter of an hour, 
they reappeared w r ith no less dignity than they had disappeared. They 
had gone rustling away as if their little dresses were made of autumn- 
leaves : and they came rustling back, in like manner. 

I then bound myself once more to the prescribed conditions. 

" Sister Clarissa," said Miss Lavinia, "the rest is with you." 

Miss Clarissa, unfolding her arms for the first time, took the notes and 
glanced at them. 

" We shall be happy," said Miss Clarissa, "to see Mr. Copperfield to 
dinner, every Sunday, if it should suit his convenience. Our hour is three." 

I bowed. 

" In the course of the week," said Miss Clarissa, " we shall be happy 
to see Mr. Copperfield to tea. Our hour is half-past six." 

I bowed again. 

" Twice in the week," said Miss Clarissa, " but, as a rule, not oftener." 

I bowed again. 

" Miss Trotwood," said Miss Clarissa, " mentioned in Mr. Copperfield's 
letter, will perhaps call upon us. When visiting is better for the happiness 
of all parties, we are glad to receive visits, and return them. When it is 
better for the happiness of all parties that no visiting should take place, (as 
in the case of our brother Erancis, and his establishment) that is quite 
different." 

I intimated that my aunt w T ould be proud and delighted to make their 
acquaintance ; though I must say I was not quite sure of their getting on 
very satisfactorily together. The conditions being now closed, I ex- 
pressed my acknowledgments in the warmest manner; and, taking the 
hand, first of Miss Clarissa, and then of Miss Lavinia, pressed it, in each 
case, to my lips. 

Miss Lavinia then arose, and begging Mr. Traddles to excuse us for a 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 425 

minute, requested me to follow her. I obeyed, all in a tremble, and was 
conducted into another room. There, I found my blessed darling stopping 
her ears behind the door, with her dear little face against the wall ; and 
Jip in the plate-warmer with his head tied up in a towel. 

Oh ! How beautiful she was in her black frock, and how she sobbed 
and cried at first, and wouldn't come out from behind the door ! How 
fond we were of one another, when she did come out at last ; and what 
a state of bliss I was in, when we took Jip out of the plate- warmer, and 
restored him to the light, sneezing very much, and were all three reunited ! 

" My clearest Dora ! Now, indeed, my own for ever ! " 

" Oh don't ! " pleaded Dora. " Please ! " 

" Are you not my own for ever, Dora ? " 

" Oh yes, of course I am ! " cried Dora, " but I am so frightened ! " 

" Frightened, my own ? " 

" Oh yes ! I don't like him," said Dora. " Why don't he go ? " 

"Who, my life?" 

" Your friend," said Dora. " It isn't any business of his. What a 
stupid he must be ! " 

" My love ! " (There never was anything so coaxing as her childish 
ways.) " He is the best creature ! " 

" Oh, but we don't want any best creatures ! " pouted Dora. 

"My dear," I argued, "you will soon know him well, and like him of 
all things. And here is my aunt coming soon ; and you '11 like her of all 
things too, when you know her." 

" No, please don't bring her ! " said Dora, giving me a horrified little 
kiss, and folding her hands. " Don't. I know she 's a naughty, mischief- 
making old thing ! Don't let her come here, Doady ! " which was a 
corruption of David. 

Eemonstrance was of no use, then ; so I laughed, and admired, and was 
very much in love and very happy ; and she showed me Jip's new trick of 
standing on his hind legs in a corner — which he did for about the space 
of a flash of lightning, and then fell down — and I don't know how long I 
should have stayed there, oblivious of Traddles, if Miss Lavinia had not 
come in to take me away. Miss Lavinia was very fond of Dora (she told 
me Dora was exactly like what she had been herself at her age — she must 
have altered a good deal), and she treated Dora just as if she had been a 
toy. I wanted to persuade Dora to come and see Traddles, but on my 
proposing it she ran off to her own room and locked herself in ; so I went 
to Traddles without her, and walked away with him on air. 

" Nothing could be more satisfactory," said Traddles ; " and they are 
very agreeable old ladies, I am sure. I shouldn't be at all surprised if 
you were to be married years before me, Copperfield." 

" Does your Sophy play on any instrument, Traddles ? " I enquired, in 
the pride of my heart. 

" She knows enough of the piano to teach it to her little sisters," said 
Traddles. 

"Does she sing at all?" I asked. 

" Why, she sings ballads, sometimes, to freshen up the others a little 
when they 're out of spirits," said Traddles. " Nothing scientific." 

" She doesn't sing to the guitar ? " said I. 



426 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Oh dear no ! " said Traddles. 

"Paint at all?" 

"Not at all," said Traddles. 

I promised Traddles that he should hear Dora sing, and see some of 
her flower-painting. He said he should like it very much, and we went 
home arm in arm in great good humour and delight. I encouraged him to 
talk about Sophy, on the way ; which he did with a loving reliance on her 
that I very much admired. I compared her in my mind with Dora, with 
considerable inward satisfaction ; but I candidly admitted to myself that 
she seemed to be an excellent kind of girl for Traddles, too. 

Of course my aunt was immediately made acquainted with the successful 
issue of the conference, and with all that had been said and done in the 
course of it. She was happy to see me so happy, and promised to call 
on Dora's aunts without loss of time. But she took such a long walk up 
and down our rooms that night, while I was writing to Agnes, that I began 
to think she meant to walk till morning. 

My letter to Agnes was a fervent and grateful one, narrating all the 
good effects that had resulted from my following her advice. She wrote, 
by return of post, to me. Her letter was hopeful, earnest, and cheerful. 
She was always cheerful from that time. 

I had my hands more full than ever, now. My daily journies to High- 
gate considered, Putney was a long way off; and I naturally wanted to go 
there as often as I could. The proposed tea-drinkings being quite 
impracticable, I compounded with Miss Lavinia for permission to visit 
every Saturday afternoon, without detriment to my privileged Sundays. 
So, the close of every week was a delicious time for me; and I got through 
the rest of the week by looking forward to it. 

I was wonderfully relieved to find that my aunt and Dora's aunts 
rubbed on, all things considered, much more smoothly than I could have 
expected. My aunt made her promised visit within a few days of the 
conference; and within a few more days, Dora's aunts called upon 
her, in due state and form. Similar but more friendly exchanges took 
place afterwards, usually at intervals of three or four weeks. I know that 
my aunt distressed Dora's aunts very much, by utterly setting at naught 
the dignity of fly-conveyance, and walking out to Putney at extraordinary 
times, as shortly after breakfast or just before tea; likewise by wearing 
her bonnet in any manner that happened to be comfortable to her head, 
without at all deferring to the prejudices of civilisation on that subject. 
But Dora's aunts soon agreed to regard my aunt as an eccentric and 
somewhat masculine lady, with a strong understanding ; and although my 
aunt occasionally ruffled the feathers of Dora's aunts, by expressing 
heretical opinions on various points of ceremony, she loved me too well 
not to sacrifice some of her little peculiarities to the general harmony. 

The only member of our small society, who positively refused to adapt 
himself to circumstances, was Jip. He never saw my aunt without 
immediately displaying every tooth in his head, retiring under a chair, and 
growling incessantly : with now and then a doleful howl, as if she really 
were too much for his feelings. All kinds of treatment were tried with 
him, coaxing, scolding, slapping, bringing him to Buckingham Street 
(where he instantly dashed at the two cats, to the terror of all beholders) ; 



OF DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 427 

but he never could prevail upon himself to bear my aunt's society. He 
would sometimes think he had got the better of his objection, and be 
amiable for a few minutes ; and then would put up his snub nose, and 
howl to that extent, that there was nothing for it but to blind him and 
put him in the plate-warmer. At length, Dora regularly muffled him 
in a towel and shut him up there, whenever my aunt was reported at 
the door. 

One thing troubled me much, after we had fallen into this quiet train. 
It was, that Dora seemed by one consent to be regarded like a pretty toy 
or plaything. My aunt, with whom she gradually became familiar, 
always called her Little Blossom ; and the pleasure of Miss Lavinia's life 
was to wait upon her, curl her hair, make ornaments for her, and treat 
her like a pet child. What Miss Lavinia did, her sister did as a matter of 
course. It was very odd to me ; but they all seemed to treat Dora, in her 
degree, much as Dora treated Jip in his. 

I made up my mind to speak to Dora about this ; and one day when 
we were out walking (for we were licensed by Miss Lavinia, after a while, 
to go out walking by ourselves), I said to her that I wished she could get 
them to behave towards her differently. 

" Because you know, my darling," I remonstrated, " you are not 
a child." 

" There ! " said Dora. " Now you 're going to be cross ! " 

" Cross, my love? " 

" I am sure they 're very kind to me," said Dora, " and I am very 
happy." 

" Well ! But my dearest life ! " said I, " you might be very happy, and 
yet be treated rationally." 

Dora gave me a reproachful look — the prettiest look ! — and then began 
to sob, saying if I didn't like her, why had I ever wanted so much to be 
engaged to her? And why didn't I go away, now, if I couldn't 
bear her ? 

What could I do, but kiss away her teai*3, and tell her how I doted 
on her, after that ! 

"I am sure I am very affectionate," said Dora; " you oughtn't to 
be cruel to me, Doady ! " 

" Cruel, my precious love ! As if I would — or could — be cruel to you, 
for the world ! " 

" Then don't find fault with me," said Dora, making a rosebud of her 
mouth ; " and I '11 be good." 

I was charmed by her presently asking me, of her own accord, to give 
her that cookery-book I had once spoken of, and to show her how to 
keep accounts as I had once promised I would. I brought the volume with 
me on my next visit (I got it prettily bound, first, to make it look less dry 
and more inviting) ; and as we strolled about the Common, I showed her 
an old housekeeping-book of my aunt's, and gave her a set of tablets, 
and a pretty little pencil case and box of leads, to practise house- 
keeping with. 

But the cookery-book made Dora's head ache, and the figures made 
her cry. They wouldn't add up, she said. So she rubbed them out, and 
drew little nosegays, and likenesses of me and Jip, all over the tablets. 



428 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Then I playfully tried verbal instruction in domestic matters, as we 
walked about on a Saturday afternoon. Sometimes, for example, when 
we passed a butcher's shop, I would say : 

" Now suppose, my pet, that we were married, and you were going to 
buy a shoulder of mutton for dinner, would you know how to buy it? " 

My pretty little Dora's face would fall, and she would make her mouth 
into a bud again, as if she would very much prefer to shut mine with 
a kiss. 

" Would you know how to buy it, my darling ? " I would repeat, 
perhaps, if I were very inflexible. 

Dora would think a little, and then reply, perhaps, with great triumph : 

" Why, the butcher would know how to sell it, and what need /know? 
Oh, you silly boy ! " 

So, when I once asked Dora, with an eye to the cookery-book, what she 
would do, if we were married, and I were to say I should like a nice Irish 
stew, she replied that she would tell the servant to make it ; and then 
clapped her little hands together across my arm, and laughed in such a 
charming manner that she was more delightful than ever. 

Consequently, the principal use to which the cookery-book was 
devoted, was being put down in the corner for Jip to stand upon. But 
Dora was so pleased, when she had trained him to stand upon it without 
offering to come off, and at the same time to hold the pencil case in his 
mouth, that I was very glad I had bought it. 

And we fell back on the guitar-case, and the flower-painting, and the songs 
about never leaving off dancing, Ta rala ! and were as happy as the week 
was long. I occasionally wished I could venture to hint to Miss Lavinia, 
that she treated the darling of my heart a little too much like a plaything ; 
and I sometimes awoke, as it were, wondering to find that I had fallen into 
the general fault, and treated her like a plaything too — but not often. 



CHAPTER XLII. 

MISCHIEF. 

I feel as if it were not for me to record, even though this manuscript 
is intended for no eyes but mine, how hard I worked at that tremendous 
short-hand, and all improvement appertaining to it, in my sense of 
responsibility to Dora and her aunts. I will only add, to what I have 
already written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of a 
patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured within 
me, and which I know to be the strong part of my character, if it have 
any strength at all, that there, on looking back, I find the source of my 
success. I have been very fortunate in worldly matters ; many men have 
worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well ; but I never could 
have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and 
diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object 
at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels, 
which I then formed. Heaven knows I write this, in no spirit of self- 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 429 

laudation. The man who reviews his own life, as I do mine, in going on 
here, from page to page, had need to have been a good man indeed, if he 
would be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents neglected, many 
opportunities wasted, many erratic and perverted feelings constantly at 
war within his breast, and defeating him. I do not hold one natural gift, 
I dare say, that I have not abused. My meaning simply is, that whatever 
I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well ; that 
whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely ; 
that, in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest. 
I have never believed it possible that any natural or improved ability can 
claim immunity from the companionship of the steady, plain, hard- 
working qualities, and hope to gain its end. There is no such thing as 
such fulfilment on this earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunate 
opportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men 
mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand 
wear and tear; and there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, 
and sincere earnestness. Never to put one hafid to anything, on which 
I could throw my whole self; and never to affect depreciation of my work, 
whatever it was ; I find, now, to have been my golden rules. 

How much of the practice I have just reduced to precept, I owe to 
Agnes, I will not repeat here. My narrative proceeds to Agnes, with a 
thankful love. 

She came on a visit of a fortnight to the Doctor's. Mr. Wickfield was 
the Doctor's old friend, and the Doctor wished to talk with him, and do him 
good. It had been matter of conversation with Agnes when she was last 
in town, and this visit was the result. She and her father came together. 
I was not much surprised to hear from her that she had engaged to find a 
lodging in the neighbourhood for Mrs. Heep, whose rheumatic complaint 
required change of air, and who would be charmed to have it in such 
company. Neither was I surprised when, on the very next day, Uriah, 
like a dutiful son, brought his worthy mother to take possession. 

" You see, Master Copperfield," said he, as he forced himself upon my 
company for a turn in the Doctor's garden, " where a person loves, a 
person is a little jealous — leastways, anxious to keep an eye on the 
beloved one." 

" Of whom are you jealous, now ? " said I. 

" Thanks to you, Master Copperfield," he returned, " of no one in 
particular just at present — no male person, at least." 

" Do you mean that you are jealous of a female person ? " 

He gave me a sidelong glance out of his sinister red eyes, and laughed. 

" Really, Master Copperfield," he said, " — I should say Mister, but I 
know you '11 excuse the abit I 've got into — you 're so insinuating, that 
you draw me like a corkscrew ! Well, I don't mind telling you," putting 
his fish-like hand on mine, " I 'm not a lady's man in general, sir, and I 
never was, with Mrs. Strong." 

His eyes looked green now, as they watched mine with a rascally 
cunning. 

"What do you mean? " said I. 

" Why, though I am a lawyer, Master Copperfield," he replied, with a 
dry grin, " I mean, just at present, what I say." 



430 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" And what do you mean by your look? " I retorted, quietly. 

" By my look ? Dear me, Copperfield, that 's sharp practice ! What 
do I mean by my look ? " 

" Yes, 3 ' said I. " By your look." 

He seemed very much amused, and laughed as heartily as it was in his 
nature to laugh. After some scraping of his chin with his hand, he went 
on to say, with his eyes cast downward — still scraping, very slowly : 

" When I was but a numble clerk, she always looked down upon me. 
She was for ever having my Agnes backwards and forwards at her ouse, 
and she was for ever being a friend to you, Master Copperfield ; but I was 
too far beneath her, myself, to be noticed." 

" Well ? " said I; " suppose you were ! " 

" — And beneath him, too," pursued Uriah, very distinctly, and in a 
meditative tone of voice, as he continued to scrape his chin. 

"Don't you know the Doctor better," said I, "than to suppose him 
conscious of your existence, when you were not before him ? " 

He directed his eyes at me in that sidelong glance again, and he made 
his face very lantern-jawed, for the greater convenience of scraping, as he 
answered : 

" Oh dear, I am not referring to the Doctor ! Oh no, poor man ! I 
mean Mr. Maldon ! " 

My heart quite died within me. All my old doubts and apprehensions 
on that subject, all the Doctor's happiness and peace, all the mingled possi- 
bilities of innocence and compromise, that I could not unravel, I saw, in a 
moment, at the mercy of this fellow's twisting. 

" He never could come into the office, without ordering and shoving me 
about," said Uriah. " One of your fine gentlemen he was ! I was very 
meek and umble — and I am. But I didn't like that sort of thing — and I 
don't ! " 

He left off scraping his chin, and sucked in his cheeks until they seemed 
to meet inside ; keeping his sidelong glance upon me all the while. 

" She is one of your lovely women, she is," he pursued, when he had 
slowly restored his face to its natural form ; " and ready to be no friend to 
such as me, I know. She 's just the person as would put my Agnes up 
to higher sort of game. Now, I ain't one of your lady's men, Master 
Copperfield ; but I 've had eyes in my ed, a pretty long time back. We 
umble ones have got eyes, mostly speaking — and we look out of 'em." 

I endeavoured to appear unconscious and not disquieted, but, I saw in 
his face, with poor success. 

" Now, I 'm not a going to let myself be run down, Copperfield," he 
continued, raising that part of his countenance where his red eyebrows 
would have been if he had had any, with malignant triumph, " and I 
shall do what I can to put a stop to this friendship. I don't approve of 
it. I don't mind acknowledging to you that I 've got rather a grudging 
disposition, and want to keep off all intruders. I ain't a going, if I know it, 
to run the risk of being plotted against." 

"You are always plotting, and delude yourself into the belief that 
everybody else is doing the like, I think," said I. 

"Perhaps so, Master Copperfield," he replied. "But I've got a 
motive, as my fellow-partner used to say; and I go at it tooth and nail. I 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD, 431 

mustn't be put upon, as a numble person, too much. I can't allow 
people in my way. Eeally they must come out of the cart, Master 
Copperfield ! " 

" I don't understand you," said I. 

"Don't you, though?" he returned, with one of his jerks. "I'm 
astonished at that, Master Copperfield, you being usually so quick ! I '11 
try to be plainer, another time. — Is that Mi*. Maldon a-norseback, ringing 
at the gate, sir ? " 

" It looks like him," I replied, as carelessly as I could. 

Uriah stopped short, put his hands between his great knobs of knees, 
and doubled himself up with laughter. With perfectly silent laughter. 
Not a sound escaped from him. I was so repelled by his odious beha- 
viour, particularly by this concluding instance, that I turned away without 
any ceremony ; and left him doubled up in the middle of the garden, like 
a scarecrow in want of support. 

It was not on that evening; but, as I well remember, on the next 
evening but one, which was a Saturday ; that I took Agnes to see Dora. 
I had arranged the visit, beforehand, with Miss Lavinia ; and Agnes was 
expected to tea. 

I was in a nutter of pride and anxiety ; pride in my dear little betrothed, 
and anxiety that Agnes should like her. All the way to Putney, Agnes 
being inside the stage-coach, and I outside, I pictured Dora to myself in 
every one of the pretty looks I knew so well ; now making up my mind 
that I should like her to look exactly as she looked at such a time, and 
then doubting whether I should not prefer her looking as she looked at 
such another time ; and almost worrying myself into a fever about it. 

I was troubled by no doubt of her being very pretty, in any case ; but 
it fell out that I had never seen her look so well. She was not in the 
drawing-room when I presented Agnes to her little aunts, but was shyly 
keeping out of the way. I knew where to look for her, now ; and sure 
enough I found her stopping her ears again, behind the same dull old 
door. 

At first she wouldn't come at all ; and then she pleaded for five minutes 
by my watch. When at length she put her arm through mine, to be taken 
to the drawing-room, her charming little face was flushed, and had never 
been so pretty. But, when we went into the room, and it turned pale, she 
was ten thousand times prettier yet. 

Dora was afraid of Agnes. She had told me that she knew Agnes was 
" too clever." But when she saw her looking at once so cheerful and so 
earnest, and so thoughtful, and so good, she gave a faint little cry of 
pleased surprise, and just put her affectionate arms round Agnes's neck, 
and laid her innocent cheek against her face. 

I never was so happy. I never was so pleased as when I saw those two 
sit down together, side by side. As when I saw my little darling looking 
up so naturally to those cordial eyes. As when I saw the tender, beautiful 
regard which Agnes cast upon her. 

Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa partook, in their way, of my joy. It 
was the pleasantest tea-table in the world. Miss Clarissa presided. I cut 
and handed the sweet seed-cake — the little sisters had a bird-like fondness 
for picking up seeds and pecking at sugar ; Miss Lavinia looked on with 



432 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

benignant patronage, as if our happy love were all her work ; and we were 
perfectly contented with ourselves and one another. 

The gentle cheerfulness of Agnes went to all their hearts. Her quiet 
interest in everything that interested Dora; her manner of making 
acquaintance with Jip (who responded instantly) ; her pleasant way, when 
Dora was ashamed to come over to her usual seat by me ; her modest 
grace and ease, eliciting a crowd of blushing little marks of confidence 
from Dora ; seemed to make our circle quite complete. 

" I am so glad," said Dora, after tea, " that you like me. I didn't 
think you would ; and I want, more than ever, to be liked, now Julia 
Mills is gone." 

I have omitted to mention it, by-the-bye. Miss Mills had sailed, and 
Dora and I had gone aboard a great East Indiaman at Gravesend to see 
her ; and we had had preserved ginger, and guava, and other delicacies 
of that sort for lunch ; and we had left Miss Mills weeping on a camp- 
stool on the quarter-deck, with a large new diary under her arm, in which 
the original reflections awakened by the contemplation of Ocean were to be 
recorded under lock and key. 

Agnes said, she was afraid I must have given her an unpromising cha- 
racter ; but Dora corrected that directly. 

" Oh no ! " she said, shaking her curls at me ; " it was all praise. He 
thinks so much of your opinion, that I was quite afraid of it." 

" My good opinion cannot strengthen his attachment to some people 
whom he knows," said Agnes, with a smile ; " it is not worth their having." 

" But please let me have it," said Dora, in her coaxing way, " if you 
can ! " 

We made merry about Dora's wanting to be liked, and Dora said I was 
a goose, and she didn't like me at any rate, and the short evening flew 
away on gossamer-wings. The time was at hand when the coach was to 
call for us. I was standing alone before the fire, when Dora came 
stealing softly in, to give me that usual precious little kiss before I 
went. 

"Don't you think, if I had had her for a friend a long time ago, 
Doady," said Dora, her bright eyes shining very brightly, and her little 
right hand idly busying itself with one of the buttons of my coat, " I 
might have been more clever perhaps ? " 

" My love ! " said I, " what nonsense ! " 

" Do you think it is nonsense ? " returned Dora, without looking at 
me. " Are you sure it is ? " 

" Of course I am ! " 

" I have forgotten," said Dora, still turning the button round and round, 
" what relation Agnes is to you, you dear bad boy." 

" No blood-relation," I replied ; "but we were brought up together, 
like brother and sister." 

" I wonder why you ever fell in love with me?" said Dora, beginning 
on another button of my coat. 

" Perhaps because I couldn't see you, and not love you, Dora ! " 

" Suppose you had never seen me at all," said Dora, going to another 
button. 

" Suppose we had never been born ! " said I, gaily. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 433 

I wondered what she was thinking about, as I glanced in admiring 
silence at the little soft hand travelling up the row of buttons on my coat, 
and at the clustering hair that lay against my breast, and at the lashes of 
her downcast eyes, slightly rising as they followed her idle fingers. At 
length her eyes were lifted up to mine, and she stood on tiptoe to give 
me, more thoughtfully than usual, that precious little kiss — once, twice, 
three times — and went out of the room. 

They all came back together within five minutes afterwards, and Dora's 
unusual thoughtfulness was quite gone then. She was laughingly resolved 
to put Jip through the whole of his performances, before the coach came. 
They took some time (not so much on account of their variety, as Jip's 
reluctance), and were still unfinished when it was heard at the door. There 
was a hurried but affectionate parting between Agnes and herself; and 
Dora was to write to Agnes (who was not to mind her letters being foolish, 
she said), and Agnes was to write to Dora ; and they had a second parting 
at the coach-door, and a third when Dora, in spite of the remonstrances of 
Miss Lavinia, would come running out once more to remind Agnes at the 
coach-window about writing, and to shake her curls at me on the box. 

The stage-coach was to put us down near Covent Garden, where we 
were to take another stage-coach for Highgate. I was impatient for the 
short walk in the interval, that Agnes might praise Dora to me. Ah ! 
what praise it was ! How lovingly and fervently did it commend the 
pretty creature I had won, with all her artless graces best displayed, to 
my most gentle care ! How thoughtfully remind me, yet with no pretence 
of doing so, of the trust in which I held the orphan child ! 

Never, never, had I loved Dora so deeply and truly, as I loved her that 
night. When we had again alighted, and were walking in the starlight 
along the quiet road that led to the Doctor's house, I told Agnes it was 
her doing. 

" When you were sitting by her," said I, " you seemed to be no less 
Iter guardian angel than mine ; and you seem so now, Agnes." 

" A poor angel," she returned, "but faithful." 

The clear tone of her voice, going straight to my heart, made it natural 
to me to say : 

" The cheerfulness that belongs to you, Agnes (and to no one else that 
ever I have seen), is so restored, I have observed to-day, that I have begun 
to hope you are happier at home ? " 

" I am happier in myself," she said ; "I am quite cheerful and light- 
hearted." 

I glanced at the serene face looking upward, and thought it was the 
stars that made it seem so noble. 

" There has been no change at home," said Agnes, after a few moments. 

" No fresh reference," said I, "to — I wouldn't distress you, Agnes, but 
I cannot help asking — to what we spoke of, when we parted last ? " 

" No, none," she answered. 

" I have thought so much about it." 

" You must think less about it. Eemember that I confide in simple love 
and truth at last. Have no apprehensions for me, Trotwood," she added, 
after a moment ; " the step you dread my taking, I shall never take." 

Although I think I had never really feared it, in any season of cool 

F F 






434 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

reflection, it was an unspeakable relief to me to have this assurance from 
her own truthful lips. I told her so, earnestly. 

" And when this visit is over," said I, — " for we may not be alone 
another time, — how long is it likely to be, my dear Agnes, before you come 
to London again ? " 

" Probably a long time," she replied; "I think it will be best — for 
papa's sake — to remain at home. We are not likely to meet often, for 
some time to come ; but I shall be a good correspondent of Dora's, and 
we shall frequently hear of one another that way." 

We were now within the little court-yard of the Doctor's cottage. 
It was growing late. There was a light in the window of Mrs. Strong's 
chamjber, and Agnes, pointing to it, bade me good night. 

" Do not be troubled," she said, giving me her hand, " by our mis- 
fortunes and anxieties. I can be happier in nothing than in your happi- 
ness. If you can ever give me help, rely upon it I will ask you for it. God 
bless you always ! " 

In her beaming smile, and in these last tones of her cheerful voice, I 
seemed again to see and hear my little Dora in her company. I stood 
awhile, looking through the porch at the stars, with a heart full of love and 
gratitude, and then walked slowly forth. I had engaged a bed at a decent 
alehouse close by, and was going out at the gate, when, happening to turn 
my head, I saw a light in the Doctor's study. A half-reproachful fancy 
came into my mind, that he had been working at the Dictionary without 
my help. With the view of seeing if this were so, and, in any case, of 
bidding him good night, if he were yet sitting among his books, I turned 
back, and going softly across the hall, and gently opening the door, 
looked in. 

The first person whom I saw, to my surprise, by the sober light of the 
shaded lamp, was Uriah. He was standing close beside it, with one of 
his skeleton hands over his mouth, and the other resting on the Doctor's 
table. The Doctor sat in his study chair, covering his face with his 
hands. Mr. Wickfield, sorely troubled and distressed, was leaning- 
forward, irresolutely touching the Doctor's arm. 

For an instant, I supposed that the Doctor was ill. I hastily advanced 
a step under that impression, when I met Uriah's eye, and saw what was 
the matter. I would have withdrawn, but the Doctor made a gesture to 
detain me, and I remained. 

" At any rate," observed Uriah, with a writhe of Ms ungainly person, 
" we may keep the door shut. We needn't make it known to all the 
town." 

Saying which, he went on his toes to the door, which I had left open, 
and carefully closed it. He then came back, and took up his former 
position. There was an obtrusive show of compassionate zeal in his 
voice and manner, more intolerable — at least to me — than any demeanour 
he could have assumed. 

" I have felt it incumbent upon me, Master Copperfield," said Uriah, 
"to point out to Doctor Strong what you and me have already talked 
about. You didn't exactly understand me, though ? " 

I gave him a look, but no other answer ; and, going to my good old 
master, said a few words that I meant to be words of comfort and encou- 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 435 

ragement. He put his hand upon my shoulder, as it had been his custom 
to do when I was quite a little fellow, but did not lift his grey head. 

" As you didn't understand me, Master Copperfield," resumed Uriah 
in the same officious manner, " I may take the liberty of umbly men- 
tioning, being among friends, that I have called Doctor Strong's attention 
to the goings-on of Mrs. Strong. It 's much against the grain with me, 
I assure you, Copperfield, to be concerned in anything so unpleasant ; 
but really, as it is, we 're all mixing ourselves up with what oughtn't 
to be. That was what my meaning was, sir, when you didn't under- 
stand me." 

I wonder now, when I recall his leer, that I did not collar him, and try 
to shake the breath out of his body. 

"I dare say I didn't make myself very clear," he went on, "nor you 
neither. Naturally, we was both of us inclined to give such a subject a 
wide berth. Hows'ever, at last I have made up my mind to speak plain ; 
and I have mentioned to Doctor Strong that — did you speak, sir ? " 

This was to the Doctor, who had moaned. The sound might have 
touched any heart, I thought, but it had no effect upon Uriah's. 

" — mentioned to Doctor Strong," he proceeded, "that any one 
may see that Mr. Maldon, and the lovely and agreeable lady as is Doctor 
Strong's wife, are too sweet on one another. Really the time is come 
(we being at present all mixing ourselves up with what oughtn't to be), 
when Doctor Strong must be told that this was full as plain to everybody 
as the sun, before Mr. Maldon went to India ; that Mr. Maldon made 
excuses to come back, for nothing else ; and that he 's always here, for 
nothing else. When you come in, sir, I was just putting it to my fellow- 
partner," towards whom he turned, "to say to Doctor Strong upon his 
word and honor, whether he 'd ever been of this opinion long ago, or not. 
Come, Mr. Wickfield, sir ! Would you be so good as tell us ? Yes or 
no, sir ? Come, partner ! " 

" Eor God's sake, my dear Doctor," said Mr. Wickfield, again laying 
his irresolute hand upon the Doctor's arm, "don't attach too much 
weight to any suspicions I may have entertained." 

" There ! " cried Uriah, shaking his head. " What a melancholy 
confirmation: ain't it? Him! Such an old friend! Bless your soul, 
when I was nothing but a clerk in his office, Copperfield, I've seen 
him twenty times, if I 've seen him once, quite in a taking about it — 
quite put out, you know (and very proper in him as a father ; I 'm sure I 
can't blame him), to think that Miss Agnes was mixing herself up with 
what oughtn't to be." 

"My dear Strong," said Mr. Wickfield in a tremulous voice, "my 
good friend, I needn't tell you that it has been my vice to look for some 
one master motive in everybody, and to try all actions by one narrow test. 
I may have fallen into such doubts as I have had, through this mistake." 

" You have had doubts, Wickfield," said the Doctor, without lifting up 
his head. " You have had doubts." 

" Speak up, fellow-partner," urged Uriah. 

" I had, at one time, certainly," said Mi". Wickfield. " I — God forgive 
me — I thought you had." 

" No, no, no ! " returned the Doctor, in a tone of most pathetic grief. 

if2 



436 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" I thought, at one time," said Mr. Wickfield, " that you wished to 
send Maldon abroad to effect a desirable separation." 

"No, no, no!" returned the Doctor. "To give Annie pleasure, by- 
making some provision for the companion of her childhood. Nothing 
else." 

"So I found," said Mr. Wickfield. "I couldn't doubt it, when you 
told me so. But I thought — I implore you to remember the narrow con- 
struction which has been my besetting sin — that, in a case where there was 
so much disparity in point of years — " 

"That's the way to put it, you see, Master Copperfield ! " observed 
Uriah, with fawning and offensive pity. 

" — a lady of such youth, and such attractions, however real her 
respect for you, might have been influenced in marrying, by worldly con- 
siderations only. I made no allowance for innumerable feelings and 
circumstances that may have all tended to good. For Heaven's sake 
remember that ! " 

" How kind he puts it ! " said Uriah, shaking his head. 

" Always observing her from one point of view," said Mr. Wickfield ; 
" but by all that is dear to you, my old friend, I entreat you to consider 
what it was ; I am forced to confess now, having no escape — " 

" No ! There 's no way out of it, Mr. Wickfield, sir," observed Uriah, 
iS when it 's got to tins." 

" — that I did," said Mr. Wickfield, glancing helplessly and distractedly 
at his partner, " that I did doubt her, and think her wanting in her duty 
to you ; and that I did sometimes, if I must say all, feel averse to Agnes 
being in such a familiar relation towards her, as to see what I saw, or 
in my diseased theory fancied that I saw. I never mentioned this to any- 
one. I never meant it to be known to any one. And though it is terrible 
to you to hear," said Mr. Wickfield, quite subdued, "if you knew how 
terrible it is to me to tell, you would feel compassion for me ! " 

The Doctor, in the perfect goodness of his nature, put out his hand. 
Mr. Wickfield held it for a little while in his, with his head bowed 
down. 

" I am sure," said Uriah, writhing himself into the silence like a 
Conger-eel, "that this is a subject full of unpleasantness to everybody. 
Eut since we have got so far, I ought to take the liberty of mentioning 
that Copperfield has noticed it too." 

I turned upon him, and asked him how he dared refer to me ! 

" Oh ! it 's very kind of you, Copperfield," returned Uriah, undulating 
all over, " and we all know what an amiable character yours is ; but you 
know that the moment I spoke to you the other night, you knew what I 
meant. You know you knew what I meant, Copperfield. Don't deny 
it ! You deny it with the best intentions ; but don't do it, Copper- 
field ! " 

I saw the mild eye of the good old Doctor turned upon me for a 
moment, and I felt that the confession of my old misgivings and remem- 
brances was too plainly written in my face to be overlooked. It was of no 
use raging. I could not undo that. Say what I would, I could not 
unsay it. 

We were silent again, and remained so, until the Doctor rose and 



OF DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 437 

walked twice or thrice across the room. Presently he returned to where 
his chair stood; and, leaning on the back of it, and occasionally putting 
his handkerchief to his eyes, with a simple honesty that did him more 
honor, to my thinking, than any disguise he could have affected, said : 

" I have been much to blame. I believe I have been very much to 
blame. I have exposed one whom I hold in my heart, to trials and 
aspersions — I call them aspersions, even to have been conceived in 
anybody's inmost mind — of which she never, but for me, could have been 
the object." 

Uriah Heep gave a kind of snivel. I think to express sympathy. 

" Of which my Annie," said the Doctor, " never, but for me, could 
have been the object. Gentlemen, I am old now, as you know ; I do 
not feel, to-night, that I have much to live for. But my life — my Life — 
upon the truth and honor of the dear lady who has been the subject of 
this conversation ! " 

I do not think that the best embodiment of chivalry, the realisation 
of the handsomest and most romantic figure ever imagined by painter, 
could have said this, with a more impressive and affecting dignity than 
the plain old Doctor did. 

" But I am not prepared," he went on, " to deny — perhaps I may 
have been, without knowing it, in some degree prepared to admit — that 
I may have unwittingly ensnared that lady into an unhappy marriage. 
I am a man quite unaccustomed to observe ; and I cannot but believe 
that the observation of several people, of different ages and positions, all 
too plainly tending in one direction (and that so natural), is better than 
mine." 

I had often admired, as I have elsewhere described, his benignant 
manner towards his youthful wife; but the respectful tenderness lie 
manifested in every reference to her on this occasion, and the almost 
reverential manner in which he put away from him the lightest doubt 
of her integrity, exalted him, in my eyes, beyond description. 

" I married that lady," said the Doctor, " when she was extremely 
young. I took her to myself when her character was scarcely formed. 
So far as it was developed, it had been my happiness to form it. I knew 
her father well. I knew her well. I had taught her what I could, for 
the love of all her beautiful and virtuous qualities. If I did her wrong ; 
as I fear I did, in taking advantage (but I never meant it) of her 
gratitude and her affection ; I ask pardon of that lady, in my heart !" 

He walked across the room, and came back to the same place ; holding 
the chair with a grasp that trembled, like his subdued voice, in its 
earnestness. 

" I regarded myself as a refuge, for her, from the dangers and 
vicissitudes of life. I persuaded myself that, unequal though we were in 
years, she would live tranquilly and contentedly with me. I did not shut 
out of my consideration the time when I should leave her free, and still 
young and still beautiful, but with her judgment more matured — no, 
gentlemen — upon my truth ! " 

His homely figure seemed to be lightened up by his fidelity and 
generosity. Every word he uttered had a force that no other grace could 
have imparted to it. 



438 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" My life with this lady has been very happy. Until to-night, I have 
had uninterrupted occasion to bless the day on which I did her great 
injustice." 

His voice, more and more faltering in the utterance of these words, 
stopped for a few moments; then he went on : 

" Once awakened from my dream — I have been a poor dreamer, in one 
way or other, all my life — I see how natural it is that she should have 
some regretful feeling towards her old companion and her equal. That 
she does regard him with some innocent regret, with some blameless 
thoughts of what might have been, but for me, is, I fear, too true. 
Much that I have seen, but not noted, has come back upon me with new 
meaning, during this last trying hour. But, beyond this, gentlemen, the 
dear lady's name never must be coupled with a word, a breath, of doubt. " 

For a little while, his eye kindled and his voice was firm ; for a little 
while he was again silent. Presently, he proceeded as before : 

" It only remains for me, to bear the knowledge of the unhappiness 
I have occasioned, as submissively as I can. It is she who should 
reproach ; not I. To save her from misconstruction, cruel miscon- 
struction, that even my friends have not been able to avoid, becomes my 
duty. The more retired we live, the better I shall discharge it. And 
when the time comes — may it come soon, if it be His merciful pleasure! — 
when my death shall release her from constraint, I shall close my eyes 
upon her honored face, with unbounded confidence and love ; and leave 
her, with no sorrow then, to happier and brighter days. 

I could not see him for the tears which his earnestness and goodness, 
so adorned by, and so adorning, the perfect simplicity of his manner, 
brought into my eyes. He had moved to the door, when he added : 

" Gentlemen, I have shown you my heart. I am sure you will respect 
it. What we have said to-night is never to be said more. Wickfield, 
give me an old friend's arm up-stairs ! " 

Mr. Wickfield hastened to him. Without interchanging a word they 
went slowly out of the room together, Uriah looking after them. 

" Well, Master Copperfield ! " said Uriah, meekly turning to me. " The 
thing hasn't took quite the turn that might have been expected, for the old 
Scholar — what an excellent man ! — is as blind as a brickbat ; but this 
family's out of the cart, I think ! " 

I needed but the sound of his voice to be so madly enraged as I never 
was before, and never have been since. 

" You villain," said I, " what do you mean by entrapping me into your 
schemes ? How dare you appeal to me just now, you false rascal, as if we 
had been in discussion together ? " 

As we stood, front to front, I saw so plainly, in the stealthy exultation 
of his face, what I already so plainly knew ; I mean that he forced his 
confidence upon me, expressly to make me miserable, and had set a 
deliberate trap for me in this very matter ; that I couldn't bear it. The 
whole of his lank cheek was invitingly before me, and I struck it with my 
open hand with that force that my fingers tingled as if I had burnt 
them. 

He caught the hand in his, and we stood, in that connexion, looking 
at each other. We stood so, a long time ; long enough for me to see the 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



439 



white marks of my fingers die out of the deep red of his cheek, and leave 
it a deeper red. 

" Copperfield," he said at length, in a breathless voice, " have you 
taken leave of your senses ? 

" I have taken leave of you," said I, wresting my hand away. " You 
dog, I '11 know no more of you." 

" Won't you ? " said he, constrained by the pain of his cheek to put 
his hand there. "Perhaps you won't be able to help it. Isn't this 
ungrateful of you, now ? " 

" I have shown you often enough," said I, " that I despise you. I have 
shown you now, more plainly, that. I do. Why should I dread your 
doing your worst to all about you ? What else do you ever do ?" 

He perfectly understood this allusion to the considerations that had 
hitherto restrained me in my communications with him. I rather think 
that neither the blow, nor the allusion, would have escaped me, but for 
the assurance I had had from Agnes that night. It is no matter. 

There was another long pause. His eyes, as he looked at me, seemed 
to take every shade of color that could make eyes ugly. 

" Copperfield," he said, removing his hand from his cheek, " you have 
always gone against me. I know you always used to be against me at 
Mr. Wickfield's." 

" You may think what you Kke," said I, still in a towering rage. " If 
it is not true, so much the worthier you." 

" And yet I always liked you, Copperfield ! " he rejoined. 

I deigned to make him no reply ; and, taking up my hat, was going out 
to bed, when he came between me and the door. 

" Copperfield," he said, " there must be two parties to a quarrel. 
I won't be one." 

" You may go to the devil ! " said I. 

" Don't say that ! " he replied. " I know you '11 be sorry afterwards. 
How can you make yourself so inferior to me, as to show such a bad spirit ? 
But I forgive you." 

" You forgive me ! " I repeated disdainfully. 

" I do, and you can't help yourself," replied Uriah. V To think of 
your going and attacking me, that have always been a friend to you ! But 
there can't be a quarrel without two parties, and I won't be one. I will 
be a friend to you, in spite of you. So now you know what you 've got to 
expect." 

The necessity of carrying on this dialogue (his part in which was very 
slow ; mine very quick) in a low tone, that the house might not be dis- 
turbed at an unseasonable hour, did not improve my temper ; though my 
passion was cooling down. Merely telling him that I should expect from 
him what I always had expected, and had never yet been disappointed in, 
I opened the door upon him, as if he had been a great walnut put there 
to be cracked, and went out of the house. But he slept out of the house 
too, at his mother's lodging ; and before I had gone many hundred yards, 
came up with me. 

" You know, Copperfield," he said, in my ear (I did not turn my 
head), " you 're in quite a wrong position ;" which I felt to be true, 
and that made me chafe the more; " you can't make this a brave thing, 



440 THE PERSONAL HISTOllY AND EXPERIENCE 

and you can't help being forgiven. I don't intend to mention it to mother, 
nor to any living soul. I 'm determined to forgive you. But I do wonder 
that you should lift your hand against a person that you knew to be so 
umble ! " 

I felt only less mean than he. He knew me better than I knew myself. 
If he had retorted, or openly exasperated me, it would have been a relief 
and a justification; but he had put me on a slow fire, on which I lay 
tormented half the night. 

In the morning, when I came out, the early church bell was ringing, 
and he was walking up and down with his mother. He addressed me as 
if nothing had happened, and I could do no less than reply. I had struck 
him hard enough to give him the toothache, I suppose. At all events his 
face was tied up in a black silk handkerchief, which, with his hat perched 
on the top of it, was far from improving his appearance. I heard that he 
went to a dentist's in London on the Monday morning, and had a tooth 
out. I hope it was a double one. 

The Doctor gave out that he was not quite well ; and remained alone, 
for a considerable part of every day, during the remainder of the visit. 
Agnes and her father had been gone a week, before we resumed our usual 
work. On the day preceding its resumption, the Doctor gave me with his 
own hands a folded note not sealed. It was addressed to myself; and 
laid an injunction on me, in a few affectionate words, never to refer to 
the subject of that evening. I had confided it to my aunt, but to no one 
else. It was not a subject I could discuss with Agnes, and Agnes cer- 
tainly had not the least suspicion of what had passed. 

Neither, I felt convinced, had Mrs. Strong then. Several weeks elapsed 
before I saw the least change in her. It came on slowly, like a cloud when 
there is no wind. At first, she seemed to wonder at the gentle compassion 
with which the Doctor spoke to her, and at his wish that she should have 
her mother with her, to relieve the dull monotony of her life. Often, when we 
were at work, and she was sitting by, I would see her pausing and looking 
at him with that memorable face. Afterwards, I sometimes observed her 
rise, with her eyes full of tears, and go out of the room. Gradually, 
an unhappy shadow fell upon her beauty, and deepened every day. Mrs. 
Markleham was a regular inmate of the cottage then ; but she talked and 
talked, and saw nothing. 

As this change stole on Annie, once like sunshine in the Doctor's house, 
the Doctor became older in appearance, and more grave ; but the sweetness 
of his temper, the placid kindness of his manner, and his benevolent 
solicitude for her, if they were capable of any increase, were increased. 
I saw him once, early on the morning of her birthday, when she came to 
sit in the window while we were at work (which she had always done, but 
now began to do with a timid and uncertain air that I thought very 
touching), take her forehead between his hands, kiss it, and go hurriedly 
away, too much moved to remain. I saw her stand where he had left 
her, like a statue ; and then bend down her head, and clasp her hands, 
and weep, I cannot say how sorrowfully. 

Sometimes, after that, I fancied that she tried to speak even to me, in 
intervals when we were left alone. But she never uttered word. The 
Doctor always had some new project for her participating in amusements 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 441 

away from home, with her mother ; and Mrs. Markleham, who was very 
fond of amusements, and very easily dissatisfied with anything else, en- 
tered into them with great good will, and was loud in her commenda- 
tions. But Annie, in a spiritless unhappy way, only went whither she 
was led, and seemed to have no care for anything. 

I did not know what to think. Neither did my aunt ; who must have 
walked, at various times, a hundred miles in her uncertainty. What Avas 
strangest of all was, that the only real relief which seemed to make its way 
into the secret region of this domestic unhappiness, made its way there in 
the person of Mr. Dick. 

What his thoughts were on the subject, or what his observation was, 
I am as unable to explain, as I dare say he would have been to assist me 
in the task. Eut, as I have recorded in the narrative of my school days, 
his veneration for the Doctor was unbounded ; and there is a subtlety of 
perception in real attachment, even when it is borne towards man by one 
of the lower animals, which leaves the highest intellect behind. To this 
mind of the heart, if I may call it so, in Mr. Dick, some bright ray of the 
truth shot straight. 

He had proudly resumed his privilege, in many of his spare hours, of 
walking up and down the garden with the Doctor; as he had been accus- 
tomed to pace up and down The Doctor's Walk at Canterbury. But 
matters were no sooner in this state, than he devoted all his spare time 
(and got up earlier to make it more) to these perambulations. Tf he had 
never been so happy as when the Doctor read that mavellous performance, 
the Dictionary, to him ; he was now quite miserable unless the Doctor 
pulled it out of his pocket, and began. When the Doctor and I were 
engaged, he now fell into the custom of walking up and down with 
Mrs. Strong, and helping her to trim her favorite flowers, or weed the 
beds. I dare say he rarely spoke a dozen words in an hour : but his quiet 
interest, and his wistful face, found immediate response in both their 
breasts ; each knew that the other liked him, and that he loved both ; and 
he became what no one else could be — a link between them. 

When I think of him, with his impenetrably wise face, walking up and 
down with the Doctor, delighted to be battered by the hard words in the 
Dictionary ; when I think of him carrying huge watering-pots after Annie ; 
kneeling down, in very paws of gloves, at patient microscopic work among 
the little leaves ; expressing as no philosopher could have expressed, in 
every thing he did, a delicate desire to be her friend ; showering sympathy, 
trustfulness, and affection, out of every hole in the watering-pot ; when I 
think of him never wandering in that better mind of his to which unhap- 
piness addressed itself, never bringing the unfortunate King Charles 
into the garden, never wavering in his grateful service, never diverted 
from his knowledge that there was something wrong, or from his wish 
to set it right — I really feel almost ashamed of having known that he was 
not quite in his wits, taking account of the utmost I have done with 
mine. 

" Nobody but myself, Trot, knows what that man is ! " my aunt would 
proudly remark, when we conversed about it. "Dick will distinguish 
himself yet ! " 

I must refer to one other topic before I close this chapter. While the 



442 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

visit at the Doctor's was still in progress, I observed that the postman 
brought two or three letters every morning for Uriah Heep, who remained 
at Highgate until the rest went back, it being a leisure time ; and that these 
were always directed in a business-like manner by Mr. Micawber, who now 
assumed a round legal hand. I was glad to infer, from these slight 
premises, that Mr. Micawber was doing well; and consequently was 
much surprised to receive, about this time, the following letter from his 
amiable wife. 

" Canterbury, Monday Evening. 

" You will doubtless be surprised, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to 
receive this communication. Still more so, by its contents. Still more so, 
by the stipulation of implicit confidence which I beg to impose. But 
my feelings as a wife and mother require relief; and as I do not wish to 
consult my family (already obnoxious to the feelings of Mr. Micawber), I 
know no one of whom I can better ask advice than my friend and former 
lodger. 

" You maybe aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield, that between myself and 
Mr. Micawber (whom I will never desert), there has always been preserved 
a spirit of mutual confidence. Mr. Micawber may have occasionally given a 
bill without consulting me, or he may have misled me as to the period 
when that obligation would become due. This has actually happened. But, 
in general, Mr. Micawber has had no secrets from the bosom of affection — 
I allude to his wife — and has invariably, on our retirement to rest, recalled 
the events of the day. 

" You will picture to yourself, my dear Mr. Copperfield, what the 
poignancy of my feelings must be, when I inform you that Mr. Micawber 
is entirely changed. He is reserved. He is secret. His life is a mystery 
to the partner of his joys and sorrows — I again allude to his wife — and if 
I should assure you that beyond knowing that it is passed from morning to 
night at the office, I now know less of it than I do of the man in the south, 
connected with whose mouth the thoughtless children repeat an idle tale 
respecting cold plum porridge, I should adopt a popular fallacy to express 
an actual fact. 

" But this is not all. Mr. Micawber is morose. He is severe. He is 
estranged from our eldest son and daughter, he has no pride in his twins, 
he looks with an eye of coldness even on the unoffending stranger who 
last became a member of our circle. The pecuniary means of meeting 
our expenses, kept down to the utmost farthing, are obtained from him 
with great difficulty, and even under fearful threats that he will Settle 
himself (the exact expression); and he inexorably refuses to give any 
explanation whatever of this distracting policy. 

" This is hard to bear. This is heart-breaking. If you will advise 
me, knowing my feeble powers such as they are, how you think it will be 
best to exert them in a dilemma so unwonted, you will add another friendly 
obligation to the many you have already rendered me. With loves from 
the children, and a smile from the happily-unconscious stranger, I remain, 
dear Mr. Copperfield, 

" Your afflicted 

"Emma Micawber." 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 443 

I did not feel justified in giving a wife of Mrs. Micawber's experience 
any other recommendation, than that she should try to reclaim Mr. Micaw- 
ber by patience and kindness (as I knew she would in any case) ; but the 
letter set me thinking about him very much. 



CHAPTEB XLIII. 



ANOTHER RETROSPECT. 



Once again, let me pause upon a memorable period of my life. Let me 
stand aside, to see the phantoms of those days go by me, accompanying 
the shadow of myself, in dim procession. 

Weeks, months, seasons, pass along. They seem little more than a 
summer day and a winter evening. Now, the Common where I walk with 
Dora is all in bloom, a field of bright gold; and now the unseen heather 
lies in mounds and bunches underneath a covering of snow. In a breath, 
the river that flows through our Sunday walks is sparkling in the summer 
sun, is ruffled by the winter wind, or thickened with drifting heaps of ice. 
Taster than ever river ran towards the sea, it flashes, darkens, and 
rolls away. 

Not a thread changes, in the house of the two little bird-like ladies. 
The clock ticks over the fire-place, the weather-glass hangs in the hall. 
Neither clock nor weather-glass is ever right ; but we believe in both, 
devoutly. 

I have come legally to man's estate. I have attained the dignity of 
twenty-one. But this is a sort of dignity that may be thrust upon one. 
Let me think what I have achieved. 

I have tamed that savage stenographic mystery. I make a respectable 
income by it. I am in high repute for my accomplishment in all pertaining 
to the art, and am joined with eleven others in reporting the debates in 
Parliament for a Morning Newspaper. Night after night, I record predic- 
tions that never come to pass, professions that are never fulfilled, explana- 
tions that are only meant to mystify. I wallow in words. Britannia, that 
unfortunate female, is always before me, like a trussed fowl : skewered 
through and through with office-pens, and bound hand and foot with red 
tape. I am sufficiently behind the scenes to know the worth of political 
life. I am quite an Infidel about it, and shall never be converted. 

My dear old Traddles has tried his hand at the same pursuit, but it is 
not in Traddles's way. He is perfectly good-humoured respecting his 
failure, and reminds me that he always did consider himself slow. He 
has occasional employment on the same newspaper, in getting up the facts 
of dry subjects, to be written about and embellished by more fertile minds. 
He is called to the bar ; and with admirable industry and self-denial has 
scraped another hundred pounds together, to fee a Conveyancer whose 
chambers he attends. A great deal of very hot port wine was consumed 



444 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

at his call ; and, considering the figure, I should think the Inner Temple 
must have made a profit by it. 

I have come out in another way. I have taken with fear and trembling 
to authorship. I wrote a little something, in secret, and sent it to a 
magazine, and it was published in the magazine. Since then, I have taken 
heart to write a good many trifling pieces. Now, I am regularly paid 
for them. Altogether, I am well off; when I tell my income on the 
fingers of my left hand, I pass the third finger and take in the fourth to 
the middle joint. 

We have removed, from Buckingham Street, to a pleasant little cottage 
very near the one I looked at, when my enthusiasm first came on. My 
aunt, however (who has sold the house at Dover, to good advantage), is 
not going to remain here, but intends removing herself to a still more 
tiny cottage close at hand. What does this portend ? My marriage ? 
Yes! 

Yes ! I am going to be married to Dora ! Miss Lavinia and Miss 
Clarissa have given their consent; and if ever canary birds were in a flutter, 
they are. Miss Lavinia, self-charged with the superintendence of my 
darling's wardrobe, is constantly cutting out brown-paper cuirasses, and 
differing in opinion from a highly respectable young man, with a long 
handle, and a yard measure under his arm. A dressmaker, always stabbed 
in the breast with a needle and thread, boards and lodges in the house ; 
and seems to me, eating, drinking, or sleeping, never to take her thimble 
off. They make a lay-figure of my dear. They are always sending for 
her to come and try something on. We can't be happy together for five 
minutes in the evening, but some intrusive female knocks at the door, and 
says, " Oh, if you please, Miss Dora, would you step up-stairs ! " 

Miss Clarissa and my aunt roam all over London, to find out articles of 
furniture for Dora and me to look at. It would be better for them to buy 
the goods at once, without this ceremony of inspection ; for, when we go to 
see a kitchen fender and meat-screen, Dora sees a Chinese house for Jip, 
with little bells on the top, and prefers that. And it takes a long time to 
accustom Jip to his new residence, after we have bought it ; whenever 
he goes in or out, he makes all the little bells ring, and is horribly 
frightened. 

Peggotty comes up to make herself useful, and falls to work imme- 
diately. Her department appears to be, to clean everything over and over 
again. She rubs everything that can be rubbed, until it shines, like her 
own honest forehead, with perpetual friction. And now it is, that I begin 
to see her solitary brother passing through the dark streets at night, and 
looking, as he goes, among the wandering faces. I never speak to him at 
such an hour. I know too well, as his grave figure passes onward, what 
he seeks, and what he dreads. 

Why does Traddles look so important when he calls upon me this 
afternoon in the Commons — where I still occasionally attend, for form's 
sake, when I have time ? The realisation of my boyish day-dreams is at 
hand. I am going to take out the license. 

It is a little document to do so much ; and Traddles contemplates it, as 
it lies upon my desk, half in admiration, half in awe. There are the names, 
in the sweet old visionary connexion, David Copperfield and Dora Spenlow ; 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 445 

and there, in the corner, is that Parental Institution, the Stamp Office, 
which is so benignantly interested in the various transactions of human 
life, looking down upon our Union ; and there is the Archbishop of Can- 
terbury invoking a blessing on us in print, and doing it as cheap as could 
possibly be expected. 

Nevertheless, I am in a dream, a flustered, happy, hurried dream. I 
can't believe that it is going to be ; and yet I can't believe but that every- 
one I pass in the street, must have some kind of perception, that I am to 
be married the day after to-morrow. The Surrogate knows me, when I go 
down to be sworn ; and disposes of me easily, as if there were a Masonic 
understanding between us. Traddles is not at all wanted, but is in attend- 
ance as my general backer. 

"I hope the next time you come here, my dear fellow," I say to 
Traddles, " it will be on the same errand for yourself. And I hope it will 
be soon." 

" Thank you for your good wishes, my dear Copperfield," he replies. 
"I hope so too. It 's a satisfaction to know that she'll wait for me any 
length of time, and that she really is the dearest girl — " 

" When are you to meet her at the coach ? ■•" I ask. 

"At seven," says Traddles, looking at his plain old silver watch — the 
very watch he once took a wheel out of, at school, to make a water-mill. 
" That is about Miss Wickfield's time, is it not ? " 

" A little earlier. Her time is half-past eight." 

" I assure you, my dear boy," says Traddles, " I am almost as pleased 
as if I were going to be married myself, to think that this event is coming to 
such a happy termination. And really the great friendship and considera- 
tion of personally associating Sophy with the joyful occasion, and inviting 
her to be a bridesmaid in conjunction with Miss Wickfield, demands my 
warmest thanks. I am extremely sensible of it." 

I hear him, and shake hands with him ; and we talk, and walk, and 
dine, and so on ; but I don't believe it. Nothing is real. 

Sophy arrives at the house of Dora's aunts, in due course. She has the 
most agreeable of faces, — not absolutely beautiful, but extraordinarily 
pleasant, — and is one of the most genial, unaffected, frank, engaging- 
creatures I have ever seen. Traddles presents her to us with great pride ; 
and rubs his hands for ten minutes by the clock, with every individual 
hair upon his head standing on tiptoe, when I congratulate him in a 
corner on his choice. 

I have brought Agnes from the Canterbury coach, and her cheerful 
and beautiful face is among us for the second time. Agnes has a great 
liking for Traddles, and it is capital to see them meet, and to observe 
the glory of Traddles as he commends the dearest girl in the world to 
her acquaintance. 

Still I don't believe it. We have a delightful evening, and are supremely 
happy ; but I don't believe it yet. I can't collect myself. I can't 
check off my happiness as it takes place. I feel in a misty and unsettled 
kind of state ; as if I had got up very early in the morning a week or two 
ago, and had never been to bed since. I can't make out when yesterday 
was. I seem to have been carrying the licence about, in my pocket, 
many months. 



446 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Next day, too, when we all go in a flock to see the house — our house — 
Dora's and mine — I am quite unable to regard myself as its master. I 
seem to be there, by permission of somebody else. I half expect the real 
master to come home presently, and say he is glad to see me. Such a 
beautiful little house as it is, with everything so bright and new ; with the 
flowers on the carpets looking as if freshly gathered, and the green leaves 
on the paper as if they had just come out ; with the spotless muslin 
curtains, and the blushing rose-coloured furniture, and Dora's garden hat 
with the blue ribbon — do I remember, now, how I loved her in such another 
hat when I first knew her ! — already hanging on its little peg ; the guitar- 
case quite at home on its heels in a corner ; and everybody tumbling over 
Jip's Pagoda, which is much too big for the establishment. 

Another happy evening, quite as unreal as all the rest of it, and I steal 
into the usual room before going away. Dora is not there. I suppose 
they have not done trying on yet. Miss Lavinia peeps in, and tells me 
mysteriously that she will not be long. She is rather long, notwith- 
standing; but by-and-by I hear a rustling at the door, and some 
one taps. 

I say, " Come in ! " but some one taps again. 

I go to the door, wondering who it is ; there, I meet a pair of bright eyes, 
and a blushing face ; they are Dora's eyes and face, and Miss Lavinia has 
dressed her in to-morrow's dress, bonnet and all, for me to see. I take 
my little wife to my heart ; and Miss Lavinia gives a little scream because 
I tumble the bonnet, and Dora laughs and cries at once, because I am so 
pleased ; and I believe it less than ever. 

" Do you think it pretty, Doady ? " says Dora. 

Pretty ! I should rather think I did. 

" And are you sure you like me very much ? " says Dora. 

The topic is fraught with such danger to the bonnet, that Miss Lavinia 
gives another little scream, and begs me to understand that Dora is only 
to be looked at, and on no account to be touched. So Dora stands in a 
delightful state of confusion for a minute or two, to be admired ; and 
then takes off her bonnet — looking so natural without it ! — and runs away 
with it in her hand ; and comes dancing down again in her own familiar 
dress, and asks Jip if I have got a beautiful little wife, and whether he '11 
forgive her for being married, and kneels down to make him stand upon 
the cookery-book, for the last time in her single life. 

I go home, more incredulous than ever, to a lodging that I have hard 
by ; and get up very early in the morning, to ride to the Highgate road 
and fetch my aunt. 

I have never seen my aunt in such state. She is dressed in lavender- 
colored silk, and has a white bonnet on, and is amazing. Janet has 
dressed her, and is there to look at me. Peggotty is ready to go to church, 
intending to behold the ceremony from the gallery. Mr. Dick, who is to 
give my darling to me at the altar, has had his hair curled. Traddles, 
whom I have taken up by appointment at the turnpike, presents a dazzling 
combination of cream color and light blue ; and both he and Mr. Dick have 
a general effect about them of being all gloves. 

No doubt I see this, because I know it is so ; but I am astray, and 
seem to see nothing. Nor do I believe anything whatever. Still, as we 




L/ ^Z^TZy c^^Ul4^^^ 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



447 



drive along in an open carriage, this fairy marriage is real enough to fill 
me with a sort of wondering pity for the unfortunate people who have no 
part in it, but are sweeping out the shops, and going to their daily 
occupations. 

My aunt sits with my hand in hers all the way. When we stop a little 
way short of the church, to put down Peggotty, whom we have brought 
on the box, she gives it a squeeze, and me a kiss. 

" God bless you, Trot ! My own boy never could be dearer. I think 
of poor dear Baby this morning." 

"So do I. And of all I owe to you, dear aunt." 

" Tut, child ! " says my aunt ; and gives her hand in overflowing cor- 
diality to Traddles, who then gives his to Mr. Dick, who then gives his 
to me, who then give mine to Traddles, and then we come to the church 
door. 

The church is calm enough, I am sure; but it might be a steam- 
power loom in full action, for any sedative effect it has on me. I am too 
far gone for that. 

The rest is all a more or less incoherent dream. 

A dream of their coming in with Dora ; of the pew-opener arranging 
us, like a drill-serjeant, before the altar rails ; of my wondering, even then, 
why pew-openers must always be the most disagreeable females procurable, 
and whether there is any religious dread of a disastrous infection of good- 
humour which renders it indispensable to set those vessels of vinegar 
upon the road to Heaven. 

Of the clergyman and clerk appearing ; of a few boatmen and some 
other people strolling in; of an ancient mariner behind me, strongly 
flavoring the church with rum ; of the service beginning in a deep voice, 
and our all being very attentive. 

Of Miss Lavinia, who acts as a semi-auxiliary bridesmaid, being the 
first to cry, and of her doing homage (as I take it) to the memory of 
Pidger, in sobs ; of Miss Clarissa applying a smelling-bottle ; of Agnes 
taking care of Dora ; of my aunt endeavouring to represent herself as a 
model of sternness, with tears rolling down her face; of little Dora 
trembling very much, and making her responses in faint whispers. 

Of our kneeling down together, side by side ; of Dora's trembling less 
and less, but always clasping Agnes by the hand ; of the service being got 
through, quietly and gravely ; of our all looking at each other in an April 
state of smiles and tears, when it is over; of my young wife being 
hysterical in the vestry, and crying for her poor papa, her dear papa. 

Of her soon cheering up again, and our signing the register all round. 
Of my going into the gallery for Peggotty to bring Jier to sign it ; of 
Peggotty's hugging me in a corner, and telling me she saw my own dear 
mother married ; of its being over, and our going away. 

Of my walking so proudly and lovingly down the aisle with my sweet 
wife upon my arm, through a mist of half-seen people, pulpits, monu- 
ments, pews, fonts, organs, and church windows, in which there flutter 
faint airs of association with my childish church at home, so long ago. 

Of their whispering, as we pass, what a youthful couple we are, and 
what a pretty little wife she is. Of our all being so merry and 
talkative in the carriage going back. Of Sophy telling us that when she 



448 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

saw Traddles (whom I had entrusted with the licence) asked for it, she 
almost fainted, having been convinced that he would contrive to lose it, 
or to have his pocket picked. Of Agnes laughing gaily ; and of Dora 
being so fond of Agnes that she will not be separated from her, but still 
keeps her hand. 

Of there being a breakfast, with abundance of things, pretty and sub- 
stantial, to eat and drink, whereof I partake, as I should do in any 
other dream, without the least perception of their flavor; eating and 
drinking, as I may say, nothing but love and marriage, and no more 
believing in the viands than in anything else. 

Of my making a speech in the same dreamy fashion, without having 
an idea of what I want to say, beyond such as may be compre- 
hended in the full conviction that I haven't said it. Of our being very 
sociably and simply happy (always in a dream though) ; and of Jip's 
having wedding cake, and its not agreeing with him afterwards. 

Of the pair of hired post-horses being ready, and of Dora's going away to 
change her dress. Of my aunt and Miss Clarissa remaining with us; and 
our walking in the garden ; and my aunt, who has made quite a speech 
at breakfast touching Dora's aunts, being mightily amused with herself, 
but a little proud of it too. 

Of Dora's being ready, and of Miss Lavinia's hovering about her, loth 
to lose the pretty toy that has given her so much pleasant occupation. Of 
Dora's making a long series of surprised discoveries that she has forgotten 
all sorts of little things ; and of everybody's running everywhere to 
fetch them. 

Of their all closing about Dora, when at last she begins to say good- 
bye, looking, with their bright colors and ribbons, like a bed of flowers. 
Of my darling being almost smothered among the flowers, and coming- 
out, laughing and crying both together, to my jealous arms. 

Of my wanting to carry Jip (who is to go along with us), and Dora's 
saying no, that she must carry him, or else he '11 think she don't like him 
any more, now she is married, and will break his heart. Of our going, 
arm in arm, and Dora stopping and looking back, and saying, " If I have 
ever been cross or ungrateful to anybody, don't remember it ! " and 
bursting into tears. 

Of her waving her little hand, and our going away once more. Of her 
once more stopping, and looking back, and hurrying to Agnes, and giving 
Agnes, above all the others, her last kisses and farewells. 

We drive away together, and I awake from the dream. I believe it at 
last. It is my dear, dear, little wife beside me, whom I love so well ! 

" Are you happy now, you foolish boy ? " says Dora, " and sure you 
don't repent ? " 

I have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. 
They are gone, and I resume the journey of my story. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



449 



CHAPTER XLIY. 



OUR HOUSEKEEPING. 

It was a strange condition of things, the honey-moon being over, and 
the bridesmaids gone home, when I found myself sitting down in my own 
small house with Dora ; quite thrown out of employment, as I may say, 
in respect of the delicious old occupation of making love. 

It seemed such an extraordinary thing to have Dora always there. It 
was so unaccountable not to be obliged to go out to see her, not to have 
any occasion to be tormenting myself about her, not to have to write to 
her, not to be scheming and devising opportunities of being alone with her. 
Sometimes of an evening, when I looked up from my writing, and saw 
her seated opposite, I. would lean back in my chair, and think how queer 
it was that there we were, alone together as a matter of course — nobody's 
business any more — all the romance of our engagement put away upon a 
shelf, to rust — no one to please but one another — one another to please, 
for life. 

When there was a debate, and I was kept out very late, it seemed so 
strange to me, as I was walking home, to think that Dora was at home ! 
It was such a wonderful thing, at first, to have her coming softly down to 
talk to me as I ate my supper. It was such a stupendous thing to know 
for certain that she put her hair in papers. It was altogether such an 
astonishing event to see her do it ! 

I doubt whether two young birds could have known less about keeping 
house, than I and my pretty Dora did. We had a servant, of course. She 
kept house for us. I have still a latent belief that she must have been 
Mrs. Crupp's daughter in disguise, we had such an awful time of it with 
Mary Anne. 

Her name was Paragon. Her nature was represented to us, when we 
engaged her, as being feebly expressed in her name. She had a written 
character, as large as a proclamation ; and, according to this document, 
could do everything of a domestic nature that ever I heard of, and a great 
many things that I never did hear of. She was a woman in the prime of 
life ; of a severe countenance ; and subject (particularly in the arms) to a 
sort of perpetual measles or fiery rash. She had a cousin in the Life 
Guards, with such long legs that he looked like the afternoon shadow of 
somebody else. His shell-jacket was as much too little for him as he was 
too big for the premises. He made the cottage smaller than it need have 
been, by being so very much out of proportion to it. Besides which, the 
walls were not thick, and whenever he passed the evening at our house, 
we always knew of it by hearing one continual growl in the kitchen. 

Our treasure was warranted sober and honest. I am therefore willing 
to believe that she was in a fit when we found her under the boiler ; and 
that the deficient teaspoons were attributable to the dustman. 

But she preyed upon our minds dreadfully. We felt our inexperience, 

G G 



450 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

and were unable to help ourselves. We should have been at her mercy, 
if she had had any ; but she was a remorseless woman, and had none. She 
was the cause of our first little quarrel. 

"My dearest life," I said one day to Dora, " do you think Mary Anne 
has any idea of time ? " . 

" Why, Doady ? " inquired Dora, looking up, innocently, from her 
drawing. 

" My love, because it 's five, and we were to have dined at four." 

Dora glanced wistfully at the clock, and hinted that she thought it was 
too fast. 

" On the contrary, my love," said I, referring to my watch, " it 's a few 
minutes too slow." 

My little wife came and sat upon my knee, to coax me to be quiet, 
and drew a line with her pencil down the middle of my nose ; but I 
couldn't dine off that, though it was very agreeable. 

" Don't you think, my dear," said I, " it would be better for you to 
remonstrate with Mary Anne ? " 

" Oh no, please ! I couldn't, Doady ! " said Dora. 

" Why not, my love ? " I gently asked. 

" Oh, because I am such a little goose," said Dora, " and she knows 
lam!" 

I thought this sentiment so incompatible with the establishment of any 
system of check on Mary Anne, that I frowned a little. 

" Oh, what ugly wrinkles in my bad boy's forehead ! " said Dora, and 
still being on my knee, she traced them with her pencil ; putting it to her 
rosy lips to make it mark blacker, and working at my forehead with a 
quaint little mockeiy of being industrious, that quite delighted me in 
spite of myself. 

" There 's a good child," said Dora, " it makes its face so much prettier 
to laugh." 

" But, my love," said I. 

" No, no ! please ! " cried Dora, with a kiss, " don't be a naughty Blue 
Beard ! Don't be serious ! " 

" My precious wife," said I, " we must be serious sometimes. Come ! 
Sit down on this chair, close beside me ! Give me the pencil ! There ! 
Now let us talk sensibly. You know, dear ; " what a little hand it was to 
hold, and what a tiny wedding-ring it was to see ! " You know, my love, 
it is not exactly comfortable to have to go out without one's dinner. 
Now, is it?" 

" N — n — no ! " replied Dora, faintly. 

" My love, how you tremble ! " 

" Because I know you 're going to scold me," exclaimed Dora, in a 
piteous voice. 

" My sweet, I am only going to reason." 

" Oh, but reasoning is worse than scolding ! " exclaimed Dora, in 
despair. " I didn't marry to be reasoned with. If you meant to reason 
with such a poor little thing as I am, you ought to have told me so, you 
cruel boy ! " 

I tried to pacify Dora, but she turned away her face, and shook her 
curls from side to side, and said " You cruel, cruel boy ! " so many times, 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 

that I really did not exactly know what to do : so I took a few 
up and down the room in my uncertainty, and came back again. 

" Dora, my darling ! " 

"No, I am not your darling. Because you must be sorry that you 
married me, or else you wouldn't reason with me ! " returned Dora. 

I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this charge, that it 
gave me courage to be grave. 

" Now, my own Dora," said I, " you are very childish, and are talking 
nonsense. You must remember, I am sure, that I was obliged to go out 
yesterday when dinner was half over ; and that, the day before, I was 
made quite unwell by being obliged to eat underdone veal in a hurry ; 
to-day, I don't dine at all — and I am afraid to say how long we waited for 
breakfast — and then the water didn't boil. I don't mean to reproach 
you, my dear, but this is not comfortable. '? 

" Oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say I am a disagreeable wife ! " cried Dora. 

" Now. my dear Dora, you must know that I never said that ! " 

" You said I wasn't comfortable ! " said Dora. 

" I said the housekeeping was not comfortable." 

"It's exactly the same thing!" cried Dora. And she evidently 
thought so, for she wept most grievously. 

I took another turn across the room, full of love for my pretty wife, 
and distracted by self-accusatory inclinations to knock my head against 
the door. I sat down again, and said : 

" I am not blaming you, Dora. We have both a great deal to learn. 
I am only trying to show you, my dear, that you must — you really must " 
(I was resolved not to give this up) — "accustom yourself to look. after 
Mary Anne. Likewise to act a little for yourself, and me." 

" I wonder, I do, at your making such ungrateful speeches," sobbed 
Dora. . " When you know that the other day, when you said you would 
like a little bit of fish, I went out myself, miles and miles, and ordered it, 
to surprise you." 

"And it was very kind of you, my own darling," said I. " I felt it so 
much that I wouldn't on any account have even mentioned that you 
bought a Salmon — which was too much for two. Or that it cost one pound 
six — which was more than we can afford." 

"You enjoyed it very much," sobbed Dora. "And you said I was 
a Mouse." 

"And I'll say so again, my love," I returned, "a thousand times ! " 

But I had wounded Dora's soft little heart, and she was not to be 
comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing and bewailing, that I felt 
as if I had said I don't know what to hurt her. I was obliged to hurry 
away ; I was kept out late ; and I felt all night such pangs of remorse as 
made me miserable. I had the conscience of an assassin, and was haunted 
by a vague sense of enormous wickedness. 

It was two or three hours past midnight when I got home. I found 
my aunt, in our house, sitting up for me. 

" Is anything the matter, aunt ? " said I, alarmed. 

"Nothing, Trot," she replied. " Sit down, sit down. Little Blossom 
has been rather out of spirits, and I have been keeping her company. 

G g 2 




45' 



THE PERSONAL HISTOEY AND EXPERIENCE 



I leaned my head upon my Land ; and felt more sorry and downcast, as 
I sat looking at the fire, than I could have supposed possible so soon 
after the fulfilment of my brightest hopes. As I sat thinking, I happened 
to meet my aunt's eyes, which were resting on my face. There was an 
anxious expression in them, but it cleared directly. 

" I assure you, aunt," said I, " I have been quite unhappy myself all 
night, to think of Dora's being so. But I had no other intention than to 
speak to her tenderly and lovingly about our home-affairs." 

My aunt nodded encouragement. 

" You must have patience, Trot," said she. 

" Of course. Heaven knows I don't mean to be unreasonable, aunt ! " 

" No, no," said my aunt. " But Little Blossom is a very tender little 
blossom, and the wind must be gentle with her." 

I thanked my good aunt, in my heart, for her tenderness towards my 
wife ; and I was sure that she knew I did. 

" Don't you think, aunt," said I, after some further contemplation of 
the fire, " that you could advise and counsel Dora a little, for our mutual 
advantage, now and then ? " 

" Trot," returned my aunt, with some emotion, " no ! Don't ask me 
such a thing ! " 

Her tone was so very earnest that I raised my eyes in surprise. 

" I look back on my life, child," said my aunt, " and I think of some 
who are in their graves, with whom I might have been on kinder terms. 
If I judged harshly of other people's mistakes in marriage, it may have 
been because I had bitter reason to judge harshly of my own. Let that 
pass. I have been a grunipy, frumpy, wayward sort of a woman, a good 
many years. I am still, and I always shall be. But you and I have done 
one another some good, Trot, — at all events, you have done me good, my 
dear ; and division must not come between us, at this time of day." 

" Division between us /" cried I. 

" Child, child ! " said my aunt, smoothing her dress, " how soon it 
might come between us, or how unhappy I might make our Little Blossom, 
if I meddled in anything, a prophet couldn't say. I want our pet to 
like me, and be as gay as a butterfly. Kemember your own home, in 
that second marriage ; and never do both me and her the injury you have 
hinted at ! " 

I comprehended, at once, that my aunt was right ; and I comprehended 
the full extent of her generous feeling towards my dear wife. 

" These are early days, Trot," she pursued, " and Rome was not built 
in a day, nor in a year. You have chosen freely for yourself;" a cloud 
passed over her face for a moment, I thought ; " and you have chosen a 
very pretty and a very affectionate creature. It will be your duty, and it 
will be your pleasure too — of course I know that ; I am not delivering a 
lecture — to estimate her (as you chose her) by the qualities she has, and 
not by the qualities she may not have. The latter you must develop in 
her, if you can. And if you cannot, child," here my aunt rubbed her nose, 
" you must just accustom yourself to do without 'em. But remember, 
my dear, your future is between you two. No one can assist you ; you 
are to work it out for yourselves. This is marriage, Trot ; and Heaven 
bless you both, in it, for a pair of babes in the wood as you are ! " 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD, 453 

My aunt said this in a sprightly way, and gave me a kiss to ratify the 
blessing. 

" Now," said she, " light my little lantern, and see me into my band- 
box by the garden path ;" for there was a communication between our 
cottages in that direction. " Give Betsey Trot wood's love to Blossom, 
when you come back ; and whatever you do, Trot, never dream of setting 
Betsey up as a scarecrow, for if I ever saw her in the glass, she's quite 
grim enough and gaunt enough in her private capacity ! " 

With this my aunt tied her head up in a handkerchief, with which she 
was accustomed to make a bundle of it on such occasions ; and I escorted 
her home. As she stood in her garden, holding up her little lantern to 
light me back, I thought her observation of me had an anxious air again ; 
but I was too much occupied in pondering on what she had said, and 
too much impressed — for the first time, in reality — by the conviction that 
Dora and I had indeed to work out our future for ourselves, and that no 
one could assist us, to take much notice of it. 

Dora came stealing down in her little slippers, to meet me, now that 
I was alone ; and cried upon my shoulder, and said I had been hard- 
hearted and she had been naughty ; and I said much the same thing in 
effect, I believe ; and we made it up, and agreed that our first little 
difference was to be our last, and that we were never to have another if 
we lived a hundred years. 

The next domestic trial we went through, was the Ordeal of Servants. 
Mary Anne's cousin deserted into our coal-hole, and was brought out, to 
our great amazement, by a piquet of his companions in arms, who took 
him away handcuffed in a procession that covered our front-garden with 
ignominy. This nerved me to get rid of Mary Anne, who went so mildly, 
on receipt of wages, that I was surprised, until I found out about the 
tea-spoons, and also about the little sums she had borrowed in my 
name of the tradespeople without authority. After an interval of Mrs. 
Kidgerbury — the oldest inhabitant of Kentish Town, I believe, who went 
out charing, but was too feeble to execute her conceptions of that art — we 
found another treasure, who was one of the most amiable of women, but 
who generally made a point of falling either up or down the kitchen stairs 
with the tray, and almost always plunged into the parlor, as into a bath, 
with the tea-things. The ravages committed by this unfortunate, render- 
ing her dismissal necessary, she was succeeded (with intervals of Mrs. Kid- 
gerbury) by a long line of Incapables ; terminating in a young person of 
genteel appearance, who went to Greenwich Fair in Dora's bonnet. After 
whom. I remember nothing but an average equality of failure. 

Everybody we had anything to do with seemed to cheat us. Our 
appearance in a shop was a signal for the damaged goods to be brought 
out immediately. If we bought a lobster, it was full of water. All our 
meat turned out to be tough, and there was hardly any crust to our 
loaves. In search of the principle on which joints ought to be roasted, to 
be roasted enough, and not too much, I myself referred to the Cookery 
Book, and found it there established as the allowance of a quarter of an 
hour to every pound, and say a quarter over. But the principle always 
failed us by some curious fatality, and we never could hit any medium 
between redness and cinders. 



454 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

I had reason to believe that in accomplishing these failures we incurred 
a far greater expense than if we had achieved a series of triumphs. It 
appeared to me, on looking over the tradesmen's books, as if we might 
have kept the basement story paved with butter, such was the extensive 
scale of our consumption of that article. I don't know whether the 
Excise returns of the period may have exhibited any increase in the demand 
for pepper ; but if our performances did not affect the market, I should say 
several families must have left off using it. And the most wonderful fact 
of all was, that we never had anything in the house. 

As to the washerwoman pawning the clothes, and coming in a state of 
penitent intoxication to apologise, I suppose that might have happened 
several times to anybody. Also the chimney on fire, the parish engine, and 
perjury on the part of the Beadle. But I apprehend that we were personally 
unfortunate in engaging a servant with a taste for cordials, who swelled 
our running account for porter at the public-house by such inexplica- 
ble items as " quartern rum shrub (Mrs. C.)" " Half-quartern gin and 
cloves (Mrs. C.)" " Glass rum and peppermint (Mrs. C.)" — the paren- 
thesis always referring to Dora, who was supposed, it appeared on 
explanation, to have imbibed the whole of these refreshments. 

One of our first feats in the housekeeping way was a little dinner to 
Traddles. I met him in town, and asked him to walk out with me that 
afternoon. He readily consenting, I wrote to Dora, saying I would 
bring him home. It was pleasant weather, and on the road we made my 
domestic happiness the theme of conversation. Traddles was very full of 
it ; and said, that, picturing himself with such a home, and Sophy waiting 
and preparing for him, he could think of nothing wanting to complete 
his bliss. 

I could not have wished for a prettier little wife at the opposite end of 
the table, but I certainly could have wished, when we sate down, for a 
little more room. I did not know how it was, but though there were 
only two of us, we were at once always cramped for room, and yet had 
always room enough to lose everything in. I suspect it may have been 
because nothing had a place of its own, except Jip's pagoda, which 
invariably blocked up the main thoroughfare. On the present occasion, 
Traddles was so hemmed in by the pagoda and the guitar-case, and 
Dora's flower-painting, and my writing-table, that I had serious doubts of 
the possibility of his using his knife and fork ; but he protested, with his 
own good-humour, " Oceans of room, Copperfield 1 I assure you, 
Oceans!" 

There was another thing I could have wished, namely, that Jip had 
never been encouraged to walk about the table-cloth during dinner. I 
began to think there was something disorderly in his being there at all, 
even if he had not been in the habit of putting his foot in the salt or the 
melted butter. On this occasion he seemed to think he was introduced 
expressly to keep Traddles at bay ; and he barked at my old friend, and 
made short runs at his plate, with such undaunted pertinacity, that he 
may be said to have engrossed the conversation. 

However, as I knew how tender-hearted my dear Dora was, and how 
sensitive she would be to any slight upon her favorite, I hinted no 
objection. For similar reasons I made no allusion to the skirmishing 




V 



^1 



^ 



OF DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 455 

plates upon the floor; or to the disreputable appearance of the castors, 
which were all at sixes and sevens, and looked drunk ; or to the further 
blockade of Traddles by wandering vegetable dishes and jugs. I could 
not help wondering in my own mind, as I contemplated the boiled leg of 
mutton before me, previous to carving it, how it came to pass that our 
joints of meat were of such extraordinary shapes — and whether our butcher 
contracted for all the deformed sheep that came into the world ; but I kept 
my reflections to myself. 

" My love," said I to Dora, " what have you got in that dish ? " 

I could not imagine why Dora had been making tempting little faces at 
me, as if she wanted to kiss me. 

II Oysters, dear," said Dora, timidly. 

" Was that your thought ? " said I, delighted. 

" Ye-yes, Doady," said Dora. 

" There never was a happier one ! " I exclaimed, laying down the 
carving-knife and fork. " There is nothing Traddles likes so much ! " 
, " Ye-yes, Doady," said Dora, " and so I bought a beautiful little barrel 
of them, and the man said they were very good. But I — I am afraid 
there 's something the matter with them. They don't seem right." Here 
Dora shook her head, and diamonds twinkled in her eyes. 

" They are only opened in both shells," said I. " Take the top one off, 
my love." 

" But it won't come off," said Dora, trying very hard, and looking very 
much distressed. 

" Do you know, Copperfield," said Traddles, cheerfully examining the 
dish, " I think it is in consequence — they are capital oysters, but I think 
it is in consequence — of their never having been opened." 

They never had been opened ; and we had no oyster-knives — and couldn't 
have used them if we had ; so we looked at the oysters and ate the mutton. 
At least we ate as much of it as was done, and made up with capers. If 
I had permitted him, I am satisfied that Traddles would have made a 
perfect savage of himself, and eaten a plateful of raw meat, to express 
enjoyment of the repast ; but I would hear of no such immolation on the 
altar of friendship, and we had a course of bacon instead ; there happening, 
by good fortune, to be cold bacon in the larder. 

My poor little wife was in such affliction when she thought I should be 
annoyed, and in such a state of joy when she found I was not, that the 
discomfiture I had subdued, very soon vanished, and we passed a happy 
evening ; Dora sitting with her arm on my chair while Traddles and I 
discussed a glass of wine, and taking every opportunity of whispering in 
my ear that it was so good of me not to be a cruel, cross old boy. By 
and bye she made tea for us ; which it was so pretty to see her do, as if 
she were busying herself with a set of doll's tea-things, that I was not 
particular about the quality of the beverage. Then Traddles and I played 
a game or two at cribbage ; and Dora singiDg to the guitar the while, it 
seemed to me as if our courtship and marriage were a tender dream of 
mine, and the night when I first listened to her voice were not yet 
over. 

When Traddles went away, and I came back into the parlor from seeing 
him out, my wife planted her chair close to mine, and sat down by my side. 



456 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" I am very sorry/* she said. " Will you try to teach me, Doady ? " 

" I must teach myself first, Dora," said I. " I am as bad as vou, 
love." 

" Ah ! But you can learn," she returned ; " and you are a clever, clever 
man!" 

" Nonsense, mouse ! " said I. 

" I wish," resumed my wife, after a long silence, " that I could have 
gone down into the country for a whole year, and lived with Agnes ! " 

Her hands were clasped upon my shoulder, and her chin rested on them, 
and her blue eyes looked quietly into mine. 

" Why so ? " I asked. 

" I think she might have improved me, and I think I might have learnt 
from Tier" said Dora. 

" All in good time, my love. Agnes has had her father to take care of 
for these many years, you should remember. Even when she was quite a 
child, she was the Agnes whom we know," said I. 

"Will you call me a name I want you to call me?" inquired Dora, 
without moving. 

f ' What is it ? " I asked with a smile. 

" It 's a stupid name," she said, shaking her curls for a moment. 
« Child-wife." 

I laughingly asked my child-wife what her fancy was in desiring to be 
so called ? She answered without moving, otherwise than as the arm I 
twined about her may have brought her blue eyes nearer to me : 

" I don't mean, you silly fellow, that you should use the name, instead 
of Dora. I only mean that you should think of me that way. When you 
are going to be angry with me, say to yourself, ' it 's only my child-wife I ' 
When I am very disappointing, say, * I knew, a long time ago, that she 
would make but a child- wife ! ' When you miss what I should like to be, 
and I think can never be, say, ' still my foolish child- wife loves me !' Tor 
indeed I do." 

I had not been serious with her ; having no idea, until now, that she was 
serious herself. But her affectionate nature was so happy in what I now 
said to her with my whole heart, that her face became a laughing one 
before her glittering eyes were dry. She was soon my child-wife indeed ; 
sitting down on the floor outside the Chinese House, ringing all the little 
bells one after another, to punish Jip for his recent bad behaviour ; while 
Jip lay blinking in the doorway with his head out, even too lazy to be 
teased. 

This appeal of Dora's made a strong impression on me. I look back on 
the time I write of; I invoke the innocent figure that I dearly loved, to 
come out from the mists and shadows of the past, and turn its gentle 
head towards me once again ; and I can still declare that this one little 
speech was constantly in my memory. I may not have used it to the best 
account ; I was young and inexperienced ; but I never turned a deaf ear 
to its artless pleading. 

Dora told me, shortly afterwards, that she was going to be a wonderful 
housekeeper. Accordingly, she polished the tablets, pointed the pencil, 
bought an immense account-book, carefully stitched up with a needle and 
thread all the leaves of the Cookery-Book which Jip had torn, and made 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 457 

quite a desperate little attempt "to be good," as she called it. But the 
figures had the old obstinate propensity — they would not add up. When 
she had entered two or three laborious items in the account-book, Jip 
would walk over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out. Her 
own little right-hand middle finger got steeped to the very bone in ink ; 
and I think that was the only decided result attained. 

Sometimes, of an evening, when I was at home and at work — for I 
wrote a good deal now, and was beginning in a small way to be known as 
a writer — I would lay down my pen, and watch my child- wife trying to be 
good. First of all, she would bring out the immense account-book, and 
lay it down upon the table, with a deep sigh. Then she would open it 
at the place where Jip had made it illegible last night, and call Jip up, to 
look at his misdeeds. This would occasion a diversion in Jip's favour, 
and some inking of his nose, perhaps, as a penalty. Then she would tell 
Jip to lie down on the table instantly, " like a lion " — which was one of 
his tricks, though I cannot say the likeness was striking — and, if he were 
in an obedient humor, he would obey. Then she would take up a pen, 
and begin to write, and find a hair in it. Then she would take up another 
pen, and begin to write, and find that it spluttered. Then she would take 
up another pen, and begin to write, and say in a low voice, " Oh, it 's a 
talking pen, and will disturb Doady ! " And then she would give it up as a 
bad job, and put the account-book away, after pretending to crush the 
lion with it. 

Or, if she were in a very sedate and serious state of mind, she would 
sit down with the tablets, and a little basket of bills and other documents, 
which looked more like curl-papers than anything else, and endeavour to 
get some result out of them. After severely comparing one with another, 
and making entries on the tablets, and blotting them out, and counting all 
the fingers of her left hand over and over again, backwards and forwards, 
she would be so vexed and discouraged, and would look so unhappy, that 
it gave me pain to see her bright face clouded — and for me ! — and I 
would go softly to her, and say : 

" What 's the matter, Dora ? " 

Dora would look up hopelessly, and reply, " They won't come right. 
They make my head ache so. And they won't do anything I want ! " 

Then I would say, "Now let us try together. Let me show you, 
Dora." 

Then I would commence a practical demonstration, to which Dora 
would pay profound attention, perhaps for five minutes ; when she would 
begin to be dreadfully tired, and would lighten the subject by curling my 
hair, or trying the effect of my face with my shirt collar turned down. 
If I tacitly checked this playfulness, and persisted, she would look so scared 
and disconsolate, as she became more and more bewildered, that the 
remembrance of her natural gaiety when I first strayed into her path, and 
of her being my child-wife, would come reproachfully upon me ; and I 
would lay the pencil down, and call for the guitar. 

I had a great deal of work to do, and had many anxieties, but the 
same considerations made me keep them to myself. I am far from sure, 
now, that it wa3 right to] do this, but I did it for my child-wife's 
sake. I search my breast, and I commit its secrets, if I know them, 



458 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

without any reservation to this paper. The old unhappy loss or want 
of something had, I am conscious, some place in my heart; but 
not to the embitterment of my life. When I walked alone in the fine 
weather, and thought of the summer days when all the air had been 
filled with my boyish enchantment, I did miss something of the reali- 
sation of my dreams ; but I thought it was a softened glory of the 
Past, which nothing could have thrown upon the present time. I did feel, 
sometimes, for a little while, that I could have wished my wife had been 
my counsellor ; had had more character and purpose, to sustain me and 
improve me by ; had been endowed with power to fill up the void which 
somewhere seemed to be about me ; but I felt as if this were an unearthly 
consummation of my happiness, that never had been meant to be, and 
never could have been. 

I was a boyish husband as to years. I had known the softening 
influence of no other sorrows or experiences than those recorded in 
these leaves. If I did any wrong, as I may have done much, I did it in 
mistaken love, and in my want of wisdom. I write the exact truth. It 
would avail me nothing to extenuate it now. 

Thus it was that I took upon myself the toils and cares of our life, 
and had no partner in them. We lived much as before, in reference to 
our scrambling household arrangements ; but I had got used to those, 
and Dora I was pleased to see was seldom vexed now. She was bright 
and cheerful in the old childish way, loved me dearly, and was happy with 
her old trifles. 

When the debates were heavy — I mean as to length, not quality, for in 
the last respect they were not often otherwise — and I went home late, 
Dora would never rest when she heard my footsteps, but would always 
come down stairs to meet me. When my evenings were unoccupied by 
the pursuit for which I had qualified myself with so much pains, and I 
was engaged in writing at home, she would sit quietly near me, however 
late the hour, and be so mute, that I would often think she had dropped 
asleep. But generally, when I raised my head, I saw her blue eyes looking 
at me with the quiet attention of Avhich I have already spoken. 

" Oh, what a weary boy ! " said Dora one night, when I met her eyes 
as I was shutting up my desk. 

" What a weary girl ! " said I. " That 's more to the purpose. You 
must go to bed another time, my love. It 's far too late for you." 

" No, don't send me to bed ! " pleaded Dora, coming to my side. 
"Pray don't do that!" 

"Dora!" 

To my amazement she was sobbing on my neck. 

" Not well, my dear ! not happy ! " 

" Yes ! quite well, and very happy ! " said Dora. " But say you '11 
let me stop, and see you write." 

" Why, what a sight for such bright eyes at midnight 1 " I replied. 

" Are they bright, though ? " returned Dora, laughing. " I 'm so glad 
they 're bright." 

" Little Vanity ! " said I. 

But it was not vanity ; it was only harmless delight in my admiration. 
I knew that very well, before she told me so. 



OP DAVID COPPERPIELD. 



459 



"If you think them pretty, say I may always stop, and see you write 1" 
said Dora. " Do you think them pretty ? " 

" Very pretty." 

" Then let me always stop and see you write." 

"I am afraid that won't improve their brightness, Dora." 

" Yes it will ! Because, you clever boy, you '11 not forget me then, 
while you are full of silent fancies. Will you mind it, if I say something 
very, very silly? — more than usual?" inquired Dora, peeping over my 
shoulder into my face. 

"What wonderful thing is that? " said I. 

" Please let me hold the pens," said Dora. " I want to have something 
to do with all those many hours when you are so industrious. May 
I hold the pens?" 

The remembrance of her pretty joy when I said yes, brings tears into 
my eyes. The next time I sat down to write, and regularly afterwards, she 
sat in her old place with a spare bundle of pens at her side. Her triumph in 
this connexion with my work, and her delight when I wanted a new pen — 
which I very often feigned to do — suggested to me a new way of pleasing 
my child-wife. I occasionally made a pretence of wanting a page or two 
of manuscript copied. Then Dora was in her glory. The preparations 
she made for this great work, the aprons she put on, the bibs she bor- 
rowed from the kitchen to keep off the ink, the time she took, the 
innumerable stoppages she made to have a laugh with Jip as if he under- 
stood it all, her conviction that her work was incomplete unless she 
signed her name at the end, and the way in which she would bring it to 
me, like a school-copy, and then, when I praised it, clasp me round the 
neck, are touching recollections to me, simple as they might appear to 
other men. 

She took possession of the keys soon after this, and went jingling 
about the house with the whole bunch in a little basket, tied to her 
slender waist. I seldom found that the places to which they belonged 
were locked, or that they were of any use except as a plaything for Jip — 
but Dora was pleased, and that pleased me. She was quite satisfied that 
a good deal was effected by this make-belief of housekeeping ; and was as 
merry as if we had been keeping a baby-house, for a joke. 

So we went on. Dora was hardly less affectionate to my aunt than to 
me, and often told her of the time when she was afraid she was " a cross 
old thing." I never saw my aunt unbend more systematically to anyone. 
She courted Jip, though Jip never responded ; listened, day after day, to 
the guitar, though I am afraid she had no taste for music ; never attacked 
the Incapables, though the temptation must have been severe ; went 
wonderful distances on foot to purchase, as surprises, any trifles that she 
found out Dora wanted ; and never came in by the garden, and missed 
her from the room, but she would call out, at the foot of the stairs, in a 
voice that sounded cheerfully all over the house : 

" Where 's Little Blossom ! " 



460 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 



CHAPTER XLY. 

MR. DICK FULFILS MY ATJNt's PREDICTION. 

It was some time now, since I had left the Doctor. Living in his 
neighbourhood, I saw him frequently ; and we all went to his house on 
two or three occasions to dinner or tea. The Old Soldier was in perma- 
nent quarters under the Doctor's roof. She was exactly the same as ever, 
and the same immortal butterflies hovered over her cap. 

Like some other mothers, whom I have known in the course of my life, 
Mrs. Markleham was far more fond of pleasure than her daughter was. She 
required a great deal of amusement, and, like a deep old soldier, pretended, 
in consulting her own inclinations, to be devoting herself to her child. 
The Doctor's desire that Annie should be entertained, was therefore 
particularly acceptable to this excellent parent ; who expressed unqualified 
approval of his discretion. 

I have no doubt, indeed, that she probed the Doctor's wound with- 
out knowing it. Meaning nothing but a certain matured frivolity and 
selfishness, not always inseparable from full-blown years, I think she 
confirmed him in his fear that he was a constraint upon his young wife, 
and that there was no congeniality of feeling between them, by so strongly 
commending his design of lightening the load of her life. 

" My dear soul," she said to him one day when I was present, "you 
know there is no doubt it would be a little pokey for Annie to be always 
shut up here." 

The Doctor nodded his benevolent head. 

" When she comes to her mother's age," said Mrs. Markleham, with a 
flourish of her fan, " then, it '11 be another thing. You might put me 
into a Jail, with genteel society and a rubber, and I should never care to 
come out. But I am not Annie, you know ; and Annie is not her mother." 

" Surely, surely," said the Doctor. 

" You are the best of creatures — no, I beg your pardon ! " for the Doctor 
made a gesture of depreciation, "I must say before your face, as I always 
say behind your back, you are the best of creatures ; but of course you don't 
— now do you ? — enter into the same pursuits and fancies as Annie ? " 

" No," said the Doctor, in a sorrowful tone. 

" No, of course not," retorted the Old Soldier. " Take your Dictionary 
for example. What a useful work a Dictionary is ! What a necessary 
work ! The meanings of words ! Without Doctor Johnson, or somebody 
of that sort, we might have been at this present moment calling an Italian- 
iron a bedstead. But we can't expect a Dictionary — especially when it 's 
making — to interest Annie, can we ? " 

The Doctor shook his head. 

" And that's why I so much approve," said Mrs. Markleham, tapping 
him on the shoulder with her shut-up fan, " of your thoughtfulness. It 
shows that you don't expect, as many elderly people do expect, old 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 461 

"heads on young shoulders. You have studied Annie's character, and 
jou understand it. That '* what I find so charming ! " 

Even the calm and patient face of Doctor Strong expressed some little 
sense of pain, I thought, under the infliction of these compliments. 

"Therefore, my dear Doctor/' said the Soldier, giving him several 
affectionate taps, " you may command me, at all times and seasons. Now, 
do understand that I am entirely at your service. I am ready to go 
with Annie to operas, concerts, exhibitions, all kinds of places ; and you 
shall never find that I am tired. Duty, my dear Doctor, before every 
consideration in the universe ! " 

She was as good as her word. She was one of those people who can 
bear a great deal of pleasure, and she never flinched in her perseverance 
in the cause. She seldom got hold of the newspaper (which she settled 
herself down in the softest chair in the house to read through an eye- 
glass, every day, for two hours), but she found out something that she 
was certain Annie would like to see. It was in vain for Annie to protest 
that she was weary of such things. Her mother's remonstrance always 
was, " Now, my dear Annie, I am sure you know better ; and I must tell 
you, my love, that you are not making a proper return for the kindness of 
Doctor Strong." 

This was usually said in the Doctor's presence, and appeared to me to 
constitute Annie's principal inducement for withdrawing her objections 
when she made any. But in general she resigned herself to her mother, 
and went where the Old Soldier would. 

It rarely happened now that Mr. Maldon accompanied them. Some- 
times my aunt and Dora were invited to do so, and accepted the invi- 
tation. Sometimes Dora only was asked. The time had been, when I 
should have been uneasy in her going ; but reflection on what had passed 
that former night in the Doctor's study, had made a change in my mistrust. 
I believed that the Doctor was right, and 1 had no worse suspicions. 

My aunt rubbed her nose sometimes when she happened to be alone 
with me, and said she couldn't make it out ; she wished they were hap- 
pier; she didn't think our military friend (so she always called the Old 
Soldier) mended the matter at all. My aunt further expressed her opinion 
" that if our military friend would cut off those butterflies, and give 'em 
to the chimney-sweepers for May-day, it would look like the beginning of 
something sensible on her part." 

But her abiding reliance was on Mr. Dick. That man had evidently an 
idea in his head, she said ; and if he could only once pen it up into a 
corner, which was his great difficulty, he would distinguish himself in 
some extraordinary manner. 

Unconscious of this prediction, Mr. Dick continued to occupy precisely 
the same ground in reference to the Doctor and to Mrs. Strong. He seemed 
neither to advance nor to recede. He appeared to have settled into his 
original foundation, like a building ; and I must confess that my faith in 
his ever moving, was not much greater than if he had been a building. 

But one night, when I had been married some months, Mr. Dick put 
his head into the parlor, where I was writing alone (Dora having gone 
out with my aunt to take tea with the two little birds), and said, with a 
significant cough : 



46 £ THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

"You couldn't speak to me without inconveniencing yourself, Trotwood 
I am afraid ? " 

" Certainly, Mr. Dick," said I ; " come in ! " 

" Trotwood," said Mr. Dick, laying his finger on the side of his nose, 
after he had shaken hands with me. "Before I sit down, I wish to make 
an observation. You know your aunt ? " 

"A little," I replied. 

" She is the most wonderful woman in the world, sir ! " 

After the delivery of this communication, which he shot out of himself 
as if he were loaded with it, Mr. Dick sat down with greater gravity than 
usual, and looked at me. 

" Now, boy," said Mr. Dick, " I am going to put a question to you." 

" As many as you please," said I. 

" What do you consider me, sir ? " asked Mr. Dick, folding his arms. 

" A dear old friend," said I. 

" Thank you, Trotwood," returned Mr. Dick, laughing, and reaching 
across in high glee to shake hands with me. " But I mean,boy," resuming his 
gravity, " what do you consider me in this respect?" touching his forehead. 

I was puzzled how to answer, but he helped me with a word. 

" Weak ? " said Mr. Dick. 

" Well," I replied, dubiously. " Bather so." 

"Exactly ! " cried Mr. Dick, who seemed quite enchanted by my reply. 
" That is, Trotwood, when they took some of the trouble out of you-know- 

who's head, and put it you know where, there was a " Mr. Dick 

made his two hands revolve very fast about each other a great number of 
times, and then brought them into collision, and rolled them over and 
over one another, to express confusion. " There was that sort of thing 
done to me somehow ? Eh ? " 

I nodded at him, and he nodded back again. 

" In short, boy," said Mi*. Dick, dropping his voice to a whisper, " I 
am simple." 

I would have qualified that conclusion, but he stopped me. 

" Yes, I am ! She pretends I am not. She won't hear of it ; but I 
am. I know I am. If she hadn't stood my friend, sir, I should have 
been shut up, to lead a dismal life these many years. But I '11 provide 
for her ! I never spend the copying money. I put it in a box. I have 
made a will. I '11 leave it all to her. She shall be rich — noble ! " 

Mr. Dick took out his pocket-handkerchief, and wiped his eyes. He 
then folded it up with great care, pressed it smooth between his two 
hands, put it in his pocket, and seemed to put my aunt away with it. 

"Now you are a scholar, Trotwood," said Mr. Dick. " You are a fine 
scholar. You know what a learned man, what a great man, the Doctor is. 
You know what honor he has always done me. Not proud in his wisdom. 
Humble, humble — condescending even to poor Dick, who is simple and 
knows nothing. I have sent his name up, on a scrap of paper, to the 
kite, along the string, when it has been in the sky, among the larks. 
The kite has been glad to receive it, sir, and the sky has been brighter 
with it." 

I delighted him by saying, most heartily, that the Doctor was deserving 
of our best respect and highest esteem. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 463 

"And his beautiful wife is a star," said Mr. Dick. '"A shining star. 
I have seen her shine, sir. But," bringing his chair nearer, and laying 
one hand upon my knee — " clouds, sir — clouds." 

I answered the solicitude which his face expressed, by conveying the 
same expression into my own, and shaking my head. 

" What clouds ? " said Mr. Dick. 

He looked so wistfully into my face, and was so anxious to understand, 
that I took great pains to answer him slowly and distinctly, as I might 
have entered on an explanation to a child. 

" There is some unfortunate division between them," I replied. " Some 
unhappy cause of separation. A secret. It may be inseparable from the 
discrepancy in their years. It may have grown up out of almost 
nothing." 

Mr. Dick, who told off every sentence with a thoughtful nod, paused 
when I had done, and sat considering, with his eyes upon my face, and 
his hand upon my knee. 

"Doctor not angry with her, Trotwood? " he said, after some time. 

" No. Devoted to her." 

" Then, I have got it, boy ! " said Mr. Dick. 

The sudden exultation with which he slapped me on the knee, and 
leaned back in his chair, with his eyebrows lifted up as high as he could 
possibly lift them, made me think him farther out of his wits than ever. 
He became as suddenly grave again, and leaning forward as before, said — 
first respectfully taking out his pocket-handkerchief, as if it really did 
represent my aunt : 

" Most wonderful woman in the world, Trotwood. Why has she done 
nothing to set things right ? " 

" Too delicate and difficult a subject for such interference," I replied. 

" Pine scholar," said Mr. Dick, touching me with his finger. " Why 
has he done nothing." 

"For the same reason," I returned. 

" Then, I have got it, boy ! " said Mr. Dick. And he stood up before 
me, more exultingly than before, nodding his head, and striking himself 
repeatedly upon the breast, until one might have supposed that he had 
nearly nodded and struck all the breath out of his body. 

" A poor fellow with a craze, sir," said Mr. Dick, " a simpleton, a weak- 
minded person — present company, you know ! " striking himself again, 
*',may do what wonderful people may not do. I'll bring them together, 
boy. I '11 try. They '11 not blame me. They '11 not object to me. They '11 
not mind what I do, if it 's wrong. I 'm only Mr. Dick. And who minds 
Dick ? Dick 's nobody ! Whoo ! " He blew a slight, contemptuous 
breath, as if he blew himself away. 

It was fortunate he had proceeded so far with his mystery, for we heard 
the coach stop at the little garden gate, which brought my aunt and Dora 
home. 

" Not a word, boy ! " he pursued in a whisper ; " leave all the blame 
with Dick — simple Dick — mad Dick. I have been thinking, sir, for some 
time that I was getting it, and now I have got it. After what you have 
said to me, I am sure I have got it. All right ! " 

Not another word did Mr. Dick utter on the subject ; but he made a 



464 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

very telegraph of himself for the next half-hour (to the great disturbance 
of my aunt's mind), to enjoin inviolable secresy on me. 

To my surprise I heard no more about it for some two or three weeks, 
though I was sufficiently interested in the result of his endeavours • 
descrying a strange gleam of good sense — I say nothing of good feeling 
for that he always exhibited — in the conclusion to which he had come. At 
last I began to believe, that, in the flighty and unsettled state of his mind 
he had either forgotten his intention or abandoned it. 

One fair evening, when Dora was not inclined to go out, my aunt and I 
strolled up to the Doctor's cottage. It was autumn, when there were no 
debates to vex the evening air ; and I remember how the leaves smelt 
like our garden at Blunderstone as we trod them under foot, and how the 
old, unhappy feeling, seemed to go by, on the sighing wind. 

It was twilight when we reached the cottage. Mrs. Strong was just 
coming out of the garden, where Mr. Dick yet lingered, busy with his 
knife, helping the gardener to point some stakes. The Doctor was engaged 
with some one in his study"; but the visitor would be gone directly, Mrs. 
Strong said, and begged us to remain and see him. We went into the 
drawing-room with her, and sat down by the darkening window. There 
was never any ceremony about the visits of such old friends and neighbours 
as we were. 

We had not sat here many minutes, when Mrs. Markleham, who usually 
contrived to be in a fuss about something, came bustling in, with her 
newspaper in her hand, and said, out of breath, " My goodness gracious, 
Annie, why didn't you tell me there was some one in the Study ! " 

" My dear mama,'* she quietly returned, " how could I know that you 
desired the information ! " 

" Desired the information ! " said Mrs. Markleham, sinking on the sofa. 
" I never had such a turn in all my life ! " 

" Have you been to the Study then, mama ? " asked Annie. 

ec Been to the Study, my dear ! " she returned emphatically. " Indeed 
I have ! I came upon the amiable creature — if you'll imagine my feelings, 
Miss Trotwood and David — in the act of making his will." 

Her daughter looked round from the window quickly. 

" In the act, my dear Annie," repeated Mrs. Markleham, spreading the 
newspaper on her lap like a table-cloth, and patting her hands upon it, 
" of making his last Will and Testament. The foresight and affection 
of the dear ! I must tell you how it was. I really must, in justice to the 
darling — for he is nothing less ! — tell you how it was. Perhaps you know, 
Miss Trotwood, that there is never a candle lighted in this house, until 
one's eyes are literally falling out of one's head with being stretched to 
read the paper. And that there is not a chair in this house, in which a 
paper can be what / call, read, except one in the Study. This took me 
to the Study, where I saw a light. I opened the door. In company with 
the dear Doctor were two professional people, evidently connected with 
the law, and they were all three standing at the table : the darling Doctor 
pen in hand. ' This simply expresses then/ said the Doctor — Annie, my 
love, attend to the very words — c this simply expresses then, gentlemen, 
the confidence I have in Mrs. Strong, and gives her all unconditionally ? * 
One of the professional people replied, * And gives her all unconditionally.' 




i 



OE DAVID COPPERFIELD. 465 

Upon that, with the natural feelings of a mother, I said, * Good God, I beg 
your pardon ! ' fell over the door-step, and came away through the little 
back passage where the pantry is." 

Mrs. Strong opened the window, and went out into the verandah, where 
she stood leaning against a pillar. 

" But now isn't it, Miss Trotwood, isn't it, David, invigorating," said 
Mrs. Markleham, mechanically following her with her eyes, " to find a 
man at Doctor Strong's time of life, with the strength of mind to do this 
kind of thing? It only shows how right I was. I said to Annie, when 
Doctor Strong paid a very flattering visit to myself, and made her the 
subject of a declaration and an offer, I said, ' My dear, there is no doubt 
whatever, in my opinion, with reference to a suitable provision for you, 
that Doctor Strong will do more than he binds himself to do.' " 

Here the bell rang, and we heard the sound of the visitors' feet as they 
went out. 

" It 's all over, no doubt," said the Old Soldier, after listening ; " the 
dear creature has signed, sealed, and delivered, and his mind 's at rest. 
Well it may be ! What a mind ! Annie, my love, I am going to the Study 
with my paper, for I am a poor creature without news. Miss Trotwood, 
David, pray come and see the Doctor." 

I was conscious of Mr. Dick's standing in the shadow of the room, 
shutting up his knife, when we accompanied her to the Study ; and of my 
aunt's rubbing her nose violently, by the way, as a mild vent for her 
intolerance of our military friend ; but who got first into the Study, or how 
Mrs. Markleham settled herself in a moment in her easy chair, or how my 
aunt and I came to be left together near the door (unless her eyes were 
quicker than mine, and she held me back), I have forgotten, if I ever knew. 
But this I know, — that we saw the Doctor before he saw us, sitting at his 
table, among the folio volumes in which he delighted, resting his head 
calmly on his hand. That, in the same moment, we saw Mrs. Strong glide 
in, pale and trembling. That Mr. Dick supported her on his arm. That 
he laid his other hand upon the Doctor's arm, causing him to look up with 
an abstracted air. That, as the Doctor moved his head, his wife dropped 
down on one knee at his feet, and, with her hands imploringly lifted, fixed 
upon his face the memorable look I had never forgotten. That at this 
sight Mrs. Markleham dropped the newspaper, and stared more like a 
figure-head intended for a ship to be called The Astonishment, than any- 
thing else I can think of. 

The gentleness of the Doctor's manner and surprise, the dignity that 
mingled with the supplicating attitude of his wife, the amiable concern 
of Mr. Dick, and the earnestness with which my aunt said to herself, 
" That man mad ! " (triumphantly expressive of the misery from which she 
had saved him), I see and hear, rather than remember, as I write about it. 

" Doctor ! " said Mr. Dick. " What is it that 's amiss ? Look here ! " 

" Annie ! " cried the Doctor. *' Not at my feet, my dear ! " 

" Yes ! " she said. " I beg and pray that no one will leave the room ! 
Oh, my husband and father, break this long silence. Let us both know 
what it is that has come between us ! " 

Mrs. Markleham, by this time recovering the power of speech, and 
seeming to swell with family pride and motherly indignation, here 

H E 



466 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

exclaimed, " Annie, get up immediately, and don't disgrace everybody be- 
longing to you by humbling yourself like that, unless you wish to see me 
go out of my mind on the spot ! " 

" Mama ! " returned Annie. " Waste no words on me, for my appeal 
is to my husband, and even you are nothing here." 

" Nothing I " exclaimed Mrs. Markleham. " Me, nothing ! The child 
has taken leave of her senses. Please to get me a glass of water !" 

I was too attentive to the Doctor and his wife, to give any heed to this 
request ; and it made no impression on anybody else ; so Mrs. Markleham 
panted, stared, and fanned herself. 

" Annie ! " said the Doctor, tenderly taking her in his hands. " My 
dear ! If any unavoidable change has come, in the sequence of time, upon 
our married life, you are not to blame. The fault is mine, and only mine. 
There is no change in my affection, admiration, and respect. I wish to 
make you happy. I truly love and honor you. Rise, Annie, pray ! " 

But she did not rise. After looking at him for a little while, she sank 
down closer to him, laid her arm across his knee, and dropping her head 
upon it, said : 

" If I have any friend here, who can speak one word for me, or for my 
husband, in this matter ; if I have any friend here, who can give a voice 
to any suspicion that my heart has sometimes whispered to me ; if I have 
any friend here, who honors my husband, or has ever cared for me, and 
has anything within his knowledge, no matter what it is, that may help to 
mediate between us, I implore that friend to speak ! " 

There was a profound silence. After a few moments of painful hesi- 
tation, I broke the silence. 

" Mrs. Strong,'* I said, " there is something within my knowledge, 
which I have been earnestly entreated by Doctor Strong to conceal, and 
have concealed until to-night. But, I believe the time has come when it 
would be mistaken faith and delicacy to conceal it any longer, and when 
your appeal absolves me from his injunction." 

She turned her face towards me for a moment, and I knew that I was 
right. I could not have resisted its entreaty, if the assurance that it gave 
me had been less convincing. 

" Our future peace," she said, " may be in your hands. I trust it 
confidently to your not suppressing anything. I know beforehand that 
nothing you, or any one, can tell me, will show my husband's noble heart 
in any other light than one. Howsoever it may seem to you to touch 
me, disregard that. I will speak for myself, before him, and before God 
afterwards." 

Thus earnestly besought, I made no reference to the Doctor for his 
permission, but, without any other compromise of the truth than a little 
softening of the coarseness of Uriah Heep, related plainly what had passed 
in that same room that night. The staring of Mrs. Markleham during 
the whole narration, and the shrill, sharp interjections with which she 
occasionally interrupted it, defy description. 

When I had finished, Annie remained, for some few moments, silent, 
with her head bent down, as I have described. Then, she took the 
Doctor's hand (he was sitting in the same attitude as when we had 
entered the room), and pressed it to her breast, and kissed it. Mr. Dick 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 467 

softly raised her ; and she stood, when she began to speak, leaning on him, 
and looking down upon her husband — from whom she never turned her eyes. 

" All that has ever been in my mind, since I was married," she said 
in a low, submissive, tender voice, " I will lay bare before you. I could 
not live and have one reservation, knowing what I know now." 

" Nay, Annie," said the Doctor, mildly, " I have never doubted you, 
my child. There is no need ; indeed there is no need, my dear." 

"There is great need," she answered, in the same way, "that I 
should open my whole heart before the soul of generosity and truth, 
whom, year by year, and day by day, I have loved and venerated more 
and more, as Heaven knows ! " 

"Keallv," interrupted Mrs. Markleham, "if I have any discretion 
at all—"" 

(" Which you haven't, you Marplot," observed my aunt, in an 
indignant whisper.) 

— " I must be permitted to observe that it cannot be requisite to enter 
into these details." 

"No one but my husband can judge of that, mama," said Annie, 
without removing her eyes from his face, "and he will hear me. If I 
say anything to give you pain, mama, forgive me. I have borne pain first, 
often and long, myself." 

" Upon my word ! " gasped Mrs. Markleham. 

"When I was very young," said Annie, "quite a little child, my 
first associations with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a 
patient friend and teacher — the friend of my dead father — who was 
always dear to me. I can remember nothing that I know, without 
remembering him. He stored my mind with its first treasures, and 
stamped his character upon them all. They never could have been, I 
think, as good as they have been to me, if I had taken them from any 
other hands." 

" Makes her mother nothing ! " exclaimed Mrs. Markleham. 

" Not so, mama," said Annie ; " but I make him what he was. I 
must do that. As I grew up, he occupied the same place still. I was 
proud of his interest : deeply, fondly, gratefully attached to him. I looked 
up to him I can hardly describe how — as a father, as a guide, as ono 
whose praise was different from all other praise, as one in whom I could 
have trusted and confided, if I had doubted all the world. You know, 
mama, how young and inexperienced I was, when you presented him 
before me, of a sudden, as a lover." 

" I have mentioned the fact, fifty times at least, to everybody here ! " 
said Mrs. Markleham. 

(" Then hold your tongue, for the Lord's sake, and don't mention it any 
more ! " muttered my aunt). 

" It was so great a change : so great a loss, I felt it, at first," said Annie, 
still preserving the same look and tone, " that I was agitated and dis- 
tressed. I was but a girl ; and when so great a change came in the 
character in which I had so long looked up to him, I think I was sorry. 
But nothing could have made him what he used to be again ; and I was 
proud that he should think me so worthy, and we were married." 

" — At Saint Alphage, Canterbury," observed Mrs. Markleham. 

H H 2 



468 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

(" Confound the woman ! " said my aunt, " she won't be quiet ! ") 

" I never thought," proceeded Annie, with a heightened color, " of any 
worldly gain that my husband would bring to me. My young heart had 
no room in its homage for any such poor reference. Mama, forgive me 
when I say that it was you who first presented to my mind the thought 
that any one could wrong me, and wrong him, by such a cruel suspicion." 

" Me ! " cried Mrs. Markleham. 

(" Ah ! You, to be sure ! " observed my aunt, " and you can't fan it 
away, my military friend ! ") 

" It was the first unhappiness of my new life," said Annie. "It was 
the first occasion of every unhappy moment I have known. Those moments 
have been more, of late, than I can count; but not — my generous 
husband ! — not for the reason you suppose ; for in my heart there is not 
a thought, a recollection, or a hope, that any power could separate 
from you ! " 

She raised her eyes, and clasped her hands, and looked as beautiful and 
true, I thought, as any Spirit. The Doctor looked on her, henceforth, as 
stedfastly as she on him. 

" Mama is blameless," she went on, " of having ever urged you for 
herself, and she is blameless in intention everyway, I am sure, — but when 
I saw how many importunate claims that were no claims were pressed upon 
you in my name ; how you were traded on in my name ; how generous 
you were, and how Mr. Wickfield, who had your welfare very much at 
heart, resented it ; the first sense of my exposure to the mean suspicion that 
my tenderness was bought — and sold to you, of all men, on earth — fell 
upon me, like unmerited disgrace, in which I forced you to participate. 
I cannot tell you what it was — mama cannot imagine what it was — to have 
this dread and trouble always on my mind Jyet know in my own soul that 
on my marriage-day I crowned the love and honor of my life ! " 

" A specimen of the thanks one gets," cried Mrs. Markleham, in tears, 
" for taking care of one's family ! I wish I was a Turk ! " 

(" I wish you were, with all my heart — and in your native country ! " 
said my aunt). 

" It was at that time that mama was most solicitous about my Cousin 
Maldon. I had liked him : " she spoke softly, but without any hesitation : 
"very much. We had been little lovers once. If circumstances had 
not happened otherwise, I might have come to persuade myself that I 
really loved him, and might have married him, and been most wretched. 
There can beno disparity inmarriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose." 

I pondered on those words, even while I was studiously attending to 
what followed, as if they had some particular interest, or some strange 
application that I could not divine. " There can be no disparity in mar- 
riage like unsuitability of mind and purpose " — " no disparity in marriage 
like unsuitability of mind and purpose." 

" There is nothing," said Annie, " that we have in common. I have 
long found that there is nothing. If I were thankful to my husband for 
no more, instead of for so much, I should be thankful to him for having 
saved me from the first mistaken impulse of my undisciplined heart." 

She stood quite still, before the Doctor, and spoke with an earnestness 
that thrilled me. Yet her voice was just as quiet as before. 



OP DAVID COPPERPIELD. 469 

" When he was waiting to be the object of your .munificence, so freely 
bestowed for my sake, and when I was unhappy in the mercenary 
shape I was made to wear, I thought it would have become him better to 
have worked his own way on. I thought that if I had been he, I would 
have tried to do it, at the cost of almost any hardship. But I thought no 
worse of him, until the night of his departure for India. That night I 
knew he had a false and thankless heart. I saw a double meaning, then, 
in Mr. Wickfield's scrutiny of me. I perceived, for the first time, the dark 
suspicion that shadowed my life." 

" Suspicion, Annie ! " said the Doctor. " No, no, no ! " 

" In your mind there was none, I know, my husband 1 " she returned. 
" And when I came to you, that night, to lay down all my load of shame 
and grief, and knew that I had to tell, that, underneath your roof, one 
of my own kindred, to whom you had been a benefactor, for the love 
of me, had spoken to me words that should have found no utterance, 
even if I had been the weak and mercenary wretch he thought me — my 
mind revolted from the taint the very tale conveyed. It died upon my 
lips, and from that hour till now has never passed them." 

Mrs. Markleham, with a short groan, leaned back in her easy chair ; and 
retired behind her fan, as if she were never coming out any more. 

" I have never, but in your presence, interchanged a word with him 
from that time ; then, only when it has been necessary for the avoidance 
of this explanation. Years have passed since he knew, from me, what his 
situation here was. The kindnesses you have secretly done for his advance- 
ment, and then disclosed to me, for my surprise and pleasure, have been, you 
will believe, but aggravations of the unhappiness and burden of my secret." 

She sunk down gently at the Doctor's feet, though he did his utmost 
to prevent her ; and said, looking up, tearfully, into his face : 

" Do not speak to me yet ! Let me say a little more ! Eight or 
wrong, if this were to be done again, I think I should do just the same. 
You never can know what it was to be devoted to you, with those old asso- 
ciations ; to find that any one could be so hard as to suppose that the 
truth of my heart was bartered away, and to be surrounded by appearances 
confirming that belief. I was very young, and had no adviser. Between 
mama and me, in all relating to you, there was a wide division. If I 
shrunk into myself, hiding the disrespect I had undergone, it was because 
I honored you so much, and so much wished that you should honor me ! " 

" Annie, my pure heart ! " said the Doctor, " my dear girl ! " 

" A little more ! a very few words -more ! I used to think there were 
so many whom you might have married, who would not have brought 
such charge and trouble on you, and who would have made your home 
a worthier home. I used to be afraid that I had better have remained 
your pupil, and almost your child. I used to fear that I was so unsuited 
to your learning and wisdom. If all this made me shrink within myself 
(as indeed it did), when I had that to tell, it was still because I honored 
you so much, and hoped that you might one day honor me." 

" That day has shone this long time, Annie," said the Doctor, " and 
can have but one long night, my dear." 

" Another word ! I afterwards meant — stedfastly meant, and purposed to 
myself — tobear the whole weight of knowing theunworthinessof one to whom 



470 THE PEESONAL HISTORY AND EXPEDIENCE 

you had been so good. And now a last word, dearest and best of friends ! 
The cause of the late change in you, which I have seen with so much pain and 
sorrow, and have sometimes referred to my old apprehension — at other times 
to lingering suppositions nearer to the truth — has been made clear to-night ; 
and by an accident I have also come to know, to-night, the full measure of 
your noble trust in me, even under that mistake. I do not hope that any 
love and duty I may render in return, will ever make me worthy of your 
priceless confidence ; but with all this knowledge fresh upon me, I can 
lift my eyes to this dear face, revered as a father's, loved as a husband's^ 
sacred to me in my childhood as a friend's, and solemnly declare that 
in my lightest thought I have never wronged you ; never wavered in the 
love and the fidelity I owe you ! " * 

She had her arms around the Doctor's neck, and he leant his head 
down over her, mingling his grey hair with her dark brown tresses. 

11 Oh, hold me to your heart, my husband ! Never cast me out ! Do not 
think or speak of disparity between us, for there is none, except in all my 
many imperfections. Every succeeding year I have known this better, as I 
have esteemed you more and more. Oh, take me to your heart, my 
husband, for my love was founded on a rock, and it endures ! " 

In the silence that ensued, my aunt walked gravely up to Mr. Dick, 
without at all hurrying herself, and gave him a hug and a sounding kiss. 
And it was very fortunate, with a view to his credit, that she did so ; for 
I am confident that I detected him at that moment in the act of making 
preparations to stand on one leg, as an appropriate expression of delight. 

" You are a very remarkable man, Dick ! " said my aunt, with an air 
of unqualified approbation ; " and never pretend to be anything else, 
for I know better ! " 

With that, my aunt pulled him by the sleeve, and nodded to me ; and 
we three stole quietly out of the room, and came away. 

" That 's a settler for our military friend, at any rate," said my aunt, 
on the way home. " I should sleep the better for that, if there was no- 
thing else to be glad of ! " 

" She was quite overcome, I am afraid," said Mr. Dick, with great 
commiseration. 

" What ! Did you ever see a crocodile overcome ? " inquired my aunt. 

" I don't think I ever saw a crocodile," returned Mr. Dick, mildly. 

" There never would have been anything the matter, if it hadn't been for 
that old Animal," said my aunt, with strong emphasis. " It 's very much 
to be wished that some mothers would leave their daughters alone after 
marriage, and not be so violently aifectionate. They seem to think the 
only return that can be made them for bringing an unfortunate young 
woman into the world — God bless my soul, as if she asked to be brought, 
or wanted to come ! — is full liberty to worry her out of it again. What 
are you thinking of, Trot ? " 

I was thinking of all that had been said. My mind was still running 
on some of the expressions used. * There can be no disparity in marriage 
like unsuitability of mind and purpose." " The first mistaken impulse of 
an undisciplined heart." " My love was founded on a rock." But we 
were at home ; and the trodden leaves were lying under-foot, and the 
autumn wind was blowing. 



OP DAVID COPPEEEIELD. 471 



CHAPTEB XL VI. 



INTELLIGENCE. 



I must have been married, if I may trust to my imperfect memory for 
dates, about a year or so, when one evening, as I was returning from a 
solitary walk, thinking of the book I was then writing — for my success had 
steadily increased with my steady application, and I was engaged at that 
time upon my first work of fiction — I came past Mrs. Steerforth's house. 
I had often passed it before, during my residence in that neighbourhood, 
though never when I could choose another road. Howbeit, it did sometimes 
happen that it was not easy to find another, without making a long circuit; 
and so I had passed that way, upon the whole, pretty often. 

I had never done more than glance at the house, as I went by with a 
quickened step. It had been uniformly gloomy and dull. None of the 
best rooms abutted on the road ; and the narrow, heavily-framed old- 
fashioned windows, never cheerful under any circumstances, looked very 
dismal, close shut, and with their blinds always drawn down. There was 
a covered way across a little paved court, to an entrance that was never 
used ; and there was one round staircase window, at odds with all the 
rest, and the only one unshaded by a blind, which had the same unoccu- 
pied blank look. I do not remember that I ever saw a light in all the house. 
If I had been a casual passer-by, I should have probably supposed that 
some childless person lay dead in it. If I had happily possessed no know- 
ledge of the place, and had seen it often in that changeless state, I should 
have pleased my fancy with many ingenious speculations, I dare say. 

As it was, I thought as little of it as. I might. But my mind could not go 
by it and leave it, as my body did ; and it usually awakened a long train of 
meditations. Coming before me, on this particular evening that I mention, 
mingled with the childish recollections and later fancies, the ghosts of 
half-formed hopes, the broken shadows of disappointments dimly seen and 
understood, the blending of experience and imagination, incidental to the 
occupation with which my thoughts had been busy, it was more than com- 
monly suggestive. I fell into a brown study as I walked on, and a voice 
at my side made me start. 

It was a woman's voice, too. I was not long in recollecting Mrs. 
Steerforth's little parlor-maid, who had formerly worn blue ribbons in her 
cap. She had taken them out now, to adapt herself, I suppose, to the 
altered character of the house; and wore but one or two disconsolate bows 
of sober brown. 

" If you please, sir, would you have the goodness to walk in, and speak 
to Miss Dartle ? " 

" Has Miss Dartle sent you for me?" I inquired. 

" Not to-night, sir, but it 's just the same. Miss Dartle saw you pass 
a night or two ago ; and I was to sit at work on the staircase, and when I 
saw you pass again, to ask you to step in and speak to her." 



472 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

I turned back, and inquired of my conductor, as we went along, how 
Mrs. Steerforth was. She said her lady was but poorly, and kept her own 
room a good deal. 

When we arrived at the house, I was directed to Miss Dartle in the 
garden, and left to make my presence known to her myself. She was 
sitting on a seat at one end of a kind of terrace, overlooking the great city. 
It was a sombre evening, with a lurid light in the sky ; and as I saw the 
prospect scowling in the distance, with here and there some larger object 
starting up into the sullen glare, I fancied it was no inapt companion to 
the memory of this fierce woman. 

She saw me as I advanced, and rose for a moment to receive me. I 
thought her, then, still more colorless and thin than when I had seen her 
last ; the flashing eyes still brighter, and the scar still plainer. 

Our meeting was not cordial. We had parted angrily on the last 
occasion ; and there was an air of disdain about her, which she took no 
pains to conceal. 

" I am told you wish to speak to me, Miss Dartle ;" said I, standing 
near her, with my hand upon the back of the seat, and declining her 
gesture of invitation to sit down. 

" If you please," said she. " Pray has this girl been found? " 

" No." 

" And yet she has run away ! " 

I saw her thin lips working while she looked at me, as if they were 
eager to load her with reproaches. 

" Run away ? " I repeated. 

" Yes ! From him," she said with a laugh. " If she is not found, 
perhaps she never will be found. She may be dead ! " 

The vaunting cruelty with which she met my glance, I never saw 
expressed in any other face that ever I have seen. 

" To wish her dead," said I, " may be the kindest wish that one of 
her own sex could bestow upon her. I am glad that time has softened 
you so much, Miss Dartle." 

She condescended to make no reply, but, turning on me with another 
scornful laugh, said : 

" The friends of this excellent and much-injured young lady are friends 
of yours. You are their champion, and assert their rights. Do you wish 
to know what is known of her ? 

" Yes," said I. 

She rose with an ill-favored smile, and, taking a few steps towards a 
wall of holly that was near at hand, dividing the lawn from a kitchen- 
garden, said, in a louder voice, " Come here ! " — as if she were calling to 
some unclean beast. 

" You will restrain any demonstrative championship or vengeance in 
this place, of course, Mr. Copperfield ? " said she, looking over her shoulder 
at me with the same expression. 

I inclined my head, without knowing what she meant ; and she said, 
" Come here ! " again ; and returned, followed by the respectable Mr. 
Littimer, who, with undiminished respectability, made me a bow, and 
took up his position behind her. The air of wicked grace : of triumph, in 



OP DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 



473 



which, strange to say, there was yet something feminine and alluring: with 
which she reclined upon the seat between us, and looked at me, was 
worthy of a cruel Princess in a Legend. 

" Now," said she, imperiously, without glancing at him, and touching 
the old wound as it throbbed : perhaps, in this instance, with pleasure 
rather than pain. " Tell Mr. Copperfield about the night." 

" Mr. James and myself, ma'am " 

" Don't address yourself to me ! " she interrupted, with a frown. 

" Mr. James and myself, sir " 

" Nor to me, if you please," said I. 

Mr. Littimer, without being at all discomposed, signified by a slight 
obeisance, that anything that was most agreeable to us was most agreeable 
to him ; and began again : 

" Mr. James and myself have been abroad with the young woman, ever 
since she left Yarmouth under Mr. James's protection. We have been in 
a variety of places, and seen a deal of foreign country. We have been in 
Prance, Switzerland, Italy, in fact, almost all parts." 

He looked at the back of the seat, as if he were addressing himself 
to that ; and softly played upon it with his hands, as if he were striking 
chords upon a dumb piano. 

" Mr. James took quite uncommonly to the young woman ; and was 
more settled, for a length of time, than I have known him to be since I 
have been in his service. The young woman was very improvable, and 
spoke the languages ; and wouldn't have been known for the same country- 
person. I noticed that she was much admired wherever we went." 

Miss Dartle put her hand upon her side. I saw him steal a glance at 
her, and slightly smile to himself. 

" Very much admired, indeed, the young woman was. What with her 
dress; what with the air and sun; what with being made so much of; 
what with this, that, and the other ; her merits really attracted general 
notice." 

He made a short pause. Her eyes wandered restlessly over the distant 
prospect, and she bit her nether lip to stop that busy mouth. 

Taking his hands from the seat, and placing one of them within the 
other, as he settled himself on one leg, Mr. Littimer proceeded, with his 
eyes cast down, and his respectable head a little advanced, and a little on 
one side : 

" The young woman went on in this manner for some time, being 
occasionally low in her spirits, until I think she began to weary Mr. James 
by giving way to her low spirits and tempers of that kind ; and things 
were not so comfortable. Mr. James he began to be restless again. The 
more restless he got, the worse she got ; and I must say, for myself, that I 
had a very difficult time of it indeed between the two. Still matters were 
patched up here, and made good there, over and over again ; and altogether 
lasted, I am sure, for a longer time than anybody could have expected." 

Kecalling her eyes from the distance, she looked at me again now, with 
her former air. Mr. Littimer, clearing his throat behind his hand with a 
respectable short-cough, changed legs, and went on : 

" At last, when there had been, upon the whole, a good many words 



474 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

and reproaches, Mr. James lie set off one morning, from the neighbourhood 
of Naples, where we had a villa (the young woman being very partial to 
the sea), and, under pretence of coming back in a day or so, left it in 
charge with me to break it out, that, for the general happiness of all con- 
cerned, he was" — here an interruption of the short cough — "gone. 
But Mr. James, I must say, certainly did behave extremely honorable ; 
for he proposed that the young woman should marry a very respectable 
person, who was fully prepared to overlook the past, and who was, at 
least, as good as anybody the young woman could have aspired to in a 
regular way : her connexions being very common." 

He changed legs again, and wetted his lips. I was convinced that the 
scoundrel spoke of himself, and I saw my conviction reflected in Miss 
Dartle's face. 

" This I also had it in charge to communicate. I was willing to do 
anything to relieve Mr. James from his difficulty, and to restore harmony 
between himself and an affectionate parent, who has undergone so much 
on his account. Therefore I undertook the commission. The young 
woman's violence when she came to, after I broke the fact of his departure, 
was beyond all expectations. She was quite mad, and had to be held by 
force ; or,'if she couldn't have got to a knife, or got to the sea, she 'd have 
beaten her head against the marble floor." 

Miss Dartle, leaning back upon the seat, with a light of exultation in 
her face, seemed almost to caress the sounds this fellow had uttered. 

"But when I came to the second part of what had been entrusted to 
me," said Mr. Littimer, rubbing his hands, uneasily, "which anybody 
might have supposed would have been, at all events, appreciated as a 
kind intention, then the young woman came out in her true colors. A 
more outrageous person I never did see. Her conduct was surprisingly 
bad. She had no more gratitude, no more feeling, no more patience, no 
more reason in her, than a stock or a stone. If I hadn't been upon my 
guard, I am convinced she would have had my blood." 

" I think the better of her for it," said I, indignantly. 

Mr. Littimer bent Ins head, as much as to say, " Indeed, sir ? But 
you 're young ! " and resumed his narrative. 

". It Avas necessary, in short, for a time, to take away everything nigh 
her, that she could do herself, or anybody else, an injury with, and to shut 
her up close. Notwithstanding which, she got out in the night ; forced 
the lattice of a window, that I had nailed up myself ; dropped on a vine 
that was trailed below; and never has been seen or heard of, to my 
knowledge, since." 

" She is dead, perhaps," said Miss Dartle, with a smile, as if she could 
have spurned the body of the ruined girl. 

" She may have drownded herself, miss," returned Mr. Littimer, 
catching at an excuse for addressing himself to somebody. " It 's 
very possible. Or, she may have had assistance from the boatmen, and 
the boatmens 5 wives and children. Being given to low company, she 
was very much in the habit of talking to them on the beach, Miss 
Dartle, and sitting by their boats. I have known her do it, when 
Mr. James has been away, whole days. Mr. James was far from pleased 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 475 

to find out, once, that she had told the children she was a boatman's 
daughter, and that in her own country, long ago, she had roamed about 
the beach, like them." 

Oh, Emily ! Unhappy beauty ! What a picture rose before me of her 
sitting on the far-off shore, among the children like herself when she was 
innocent, listening to little voices such as might have called her Mother 
had she been a poor man's wife ; and to the great voice of the sea, with 
its eternal " Never more ! " 

" When it was clear that nothing could be done, Miss Dartle — " 

"Did I tell you not to speak to me? " she said, with stern contempt. 

"You spoke to me, miss," he replied. "I beg your pardon. But 
it 's my service to obey." 

"Do your service," she returned. " Finish your story, and go ! " 

"When it was clear," he said, with infinite respectability, and an 
obedient bow, " that she was not to be found, I went to Mi*. James, at 
the place where it had been agreed that I should write to him, and 
informed him of what had occurred. Words passed between us in 
consequence, and I felt it due to my character to leave him. I could 
bear, and I have borne, a great deal from Mr. James ; but he insulted 
me too far. He hurt me. Knowing the unfortunate difference between 
himself and his mother, and what her anxiety of mind was likely to be, I 
took the liberty of coming home to England, and relating — " 

"Eor money which I paid him," said Miss Dartle to me. 

" Just so, ma'am — and relating what I knew. I am not aware," said 
Mr. Littimer, after a moment's reflection, " that there is anything else. 
I am at present out of employment, and should be happy to meet with a 
respectable situation." 

Miss Dartle glanced at me, as though she would inquire if there were 
anything that I desired to ask. As there was something which had 
occurred to my mind, I said in reply : 

" I could wish to know from this — creature," I could not bring myself 
to utter any more conciliatory word, " whether they intercepted a letter 
that was written to her from home, or whether he supposes that she 
received it." 

He remained calm and silent, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and 
the tip of every finger of his right hand delicately poised against the tip 
of every finger of his left. 

Miss Dartle turned her head disdainfully towards him. 

" I beg your pardon, miss," he said, awakening from his abstraction, 
"but, however submissive to you, I have my position, though a servant. 
Mr. Copperfield and you, miss, are different people. If Mr. Copperfield 
wishes to know anything from me, I take the liberty of reminding 
Mr. Copperfield that he can put a question to me. I have a character to 
maintain." 

After a momentary struggle with myself, I turned my eyes upon him, 
and said, " You have heard my question. Consider it addressed to yourself, 
if you choose. What answer do you make ? " 

" Sir," he rejoined, with an occasional separation and reunion of those 
delicate tips, " my answer must be qualified ; because, to betray Mr. James's 



476 THE PERSONAL HISTOEY AND EXPERIENCE 

confidence to his mother, and to betray it to you, are two different actions. 
It is not probable, I consider, that Mr. James would encourage the receipt 
of letters likely to increase low spirits and unpleasantness; but further 
than that, sir, I should wish to avoid going." 

" Is that all ? " enquired Miss Dartle of me. 

I indicated that I had nothing more to say. " Except," I added, as I 
saw him moving off, " that I understand this fellow's part in the wicked 
story, and that, as I shall make it known to the honest man who has been 
her father from her childhood, I would recommend him to avoid going too 
much into public." 

He had stopped the moment I began, and had listened with his usual 
repose of manner. 

" Thank you, sir. But you'll excuse me if I say, sir, that there are 
neither slaves nor slave-drivers in this country, and that people are not 
allowed to take the law into their own hands. If they do, it is more to 
their own peril, I believe, than to other people's. Consequently speaking, 
I am not at all afraid of going wherever I may wish, sir." 

With that, he made me a polite bow ; and, with another to Miss Dartle, 
went away through the arch in the wall of holly by which he had come. 
Miss Dartle and I regarded each other for a little while in silence ; her 
manner being exactly what it was, when she had produced the man. 

" He says besides," she observed, with a slow curling of her lip, "that 
his master, as he hears, is coasting Spain ; and this done, is away to gratify 
his seafaring tastes till he is weary. But that is of no interest to you. 
Between these two proud persons, mother and son, there is a wider breach 
than before, and little hope of its healing, for they are one at heart, and time 
makes each more obstinate and imperious. Neither is this of any interest 
to you ; but it introduces what I wish to say. This devil whom you make an 
angel of, I mean this low girl whom he picked out of the tide-mud," with 
her black eyes full upon me, and her passionate finger up, " may be alive, — 
for I believe some common things are hard to die. If she is, you will desire 
to have a pearl of such price found and taken care of. We desire that, 
too ; that he may not by any chance be made her prey again. So far, we 
are united in one interest ; and that is why I, who would do her any mis- 
chief that so coarse a wretch is capable of feeling, have sent for you to 
hear what you have heard." 

I saw, by the change in her face, that some one was advancing behind 
me. It was Mrs. Steerforth, who gave me her hand more coldly than 
of yore, and with an augmentation of her former stateliness of manner ; 
but still, I perceived — and I was touched by it — with an ineffaceable 
remembrance of my old love for her son. She was greatly altered. Her 
fine figure was far less upright, her handsome face was deeply marked, 
and her hair was almost white. But when she sat down on the seat, she 
was a handsome lady still ; and well I knew the bright eye with its lofty 
look, that had been a light in my very dreams at school. 

" Is Mr. Copperfield informed of everything, Rosa? " 

"Yes." 

"And has he heard Littimer himself? " 

" Yes ; I have told him why you wished it." 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 477 

M You. are a good girl. I have had some slight correspondence with 
your former friend, sir," addressing me, " but it has not restored his sense 
of duty or natural obligation. Therefore I have no other object in this, 
than what Eosa has mentioned. If, by the course which may relieve the 
mind of the decent man you brought here (for whom I am sorry — I can 
say no more), my son may be saved from again falling into the snares of a 
designing enemy, well ! " 

She drew herself up, and sat looking straight before her, far away. 

" Madam," I said respectfully, " I understand. I assure you I am in no 
danger of putting any strained construction on your motives. But I must 
say, even to you, having known this injured family from childhood, that if 
you suppose the girl, so deeply wronged, has not been cruelly deluded, and 
would not rather die a hundred deaths than take a cup of water from 
your son's hand now, you cherish a terrible mistake." 

" Well, Eosa, well ! " said Mrs. Steerforth, as the other was about to 
interpose, "it is no matter. Let it be. You are married, sir, I am 
told?" 

I answered that I had been some time married. 

" And are doing well ? I hear little in the quiet life I lead, but I 
understand you are beginning to be famous." 

"I have been very fortunate," I said, " and find my name connected 
with some praise." 

" You have no mother ? " — in a softened voice. 

"No." 

" It is a pity," she returned. " She would have been proud of you. 
Good night ! " 

I took the hand she held out with a dignified, unbending air, and it was 
as calm in mine as if her breast had been at peace. Her pride could still 
its very pulses it appeared, and draw the placid veil before her face, 
through which she sat looking straight before her on the far distance. 

As I moved away from them along the terrace, I could not help 
observing how steadily they both sat gazing on the prospect, and how it 
thickened and closed around them. Here and there, some early lamps 
were seen to twinkle in the distant city ; and in the eastern quarter of the 
sky the lurid light still hovered. But, from the greater part of the broad 
valley interposed, a mist was rising like a sea, which, mingling with the 
darkness, made it seem as if the gathering waters would encompass them. 
I have reason to remember this, and think of it with awe ; for before I 
looked upon those two again, a stormy sea had risen to their feet* 

Eeflecting on what had been thus told me, I felt it right that it should 
be communicated to Mr. Peggotty. On the following evening I went into 
London in quest of him. He was always wandering about from place to 
place, with his one object of recovering his niece before him ; but was 
more in London than elsewhere. Often and often, now, had I seen him in 
the dead of night passing along the streets, searching, among the few who 
loitered out of doors at those untimely hours, for what he dreaded to find. 

He kept a lodging over the little chandler's shop in Hun gerford Market, 
which I have had occasion to mention more than once, and from which he 
first went forth upon his errand of mercy. Hither I directed my walk. 



478 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

On making inquiry for him, I learned from the people of the house that 
he had not gone out yet, and I should find him in his room up-stairs. 

He was sitting reading by a window in which he kept a few plants. The 
room was very neat and orderly. I saw in a moment that it was always 
kept prepared for her reception, and that he never went out but he thought 
it possible he might bring her home. He had not heard my tap 
at the door, and only raised his eyes when I laid my hand upon his 
shoulder, 

" Mas'r Davy ! Thankee, sir ! thankee hearty, for this visit ! Sit ye 
down. You 're kindly welcome, sir ! " 

" Mr. Peggotty," said I, taking the chair he handed me, " don't expect 
much ! I have heard some news." 

" Of Em'ly ! " 

He put his hand, in a nervous manner, on his mouth, and turned pale, 
as he fixed his eyes on mine. 

" It gives no clue to where she is ; but she is not with him." 

He sat down, looking intently at me, and listened in profound silence 
to all I had to tell. I well remember the sense of dignity, beauty even, 
with which the patient gravity of his face impressed me, when, having 
gradually removed his eyes from mine, he sat looking downward, leaning 
his forehead on his hand. He offered no interruption, but remained 
throughout perfectly still. He seemed to pursue her figure through 
the narrative, and to let every other shape go by him, as if it were 
nothing. 

When I had done, he shaded his face, and continued silent. I looked 
out of the window for a little while, and occupied myself with the plants. 

"How do you fare to feel about it, Mas'r Davy?" he inquired at 
length. 

" I think that she is living," I replied. 

" I doen't know. Maybe the first shock was too rough, and in the 

wildness of her art • ! That there blue water as she used to speak 

on. Could she have thowt o' that so many year, because it was to be 
her grave ! " 

He said this, musing, in a low, frightened voice ; and walked across 
the little room. 

" And yet," he added, " Mas'r Davy, I have felt so sure as she was 
living — I have know'd, awake and sleeping, as it was so trew that I should 
find her — I have been so led on by it, and held up by it — that I doen't 
believe I can have been deceived. No ! Em'ly 's alive ! " 

He put his hand down firmly on the table, and set his sunburnt face 
into a resolute expression. 

" My niece, Em'ly, is alive, sir ! " he said, stedfastly. " I doen't know 
wheer it comes from, or how 'tis, but 2" am told as she 's alive ! " 

He looked almost like a man inspired, as he said it. I waited for a few 
moments, until he could give me his undivided attention ; and then pro- 
ceeded to explain the precaution, that, it had occurred to me last night, 
it would be wise to take. 

" Now, my dear friend — " I began. 

" Thankee, thankee, kind sir," he said, grasping my hand in both of his. 



OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 479 

" If she should make her way to London, which is likely — for where 
could she lose herself so readily as in this vast city ; and what would she 
wish to do, but lose and hide herself, if she does not go home ? — " 

" And she won't go home," he interposed, shaking his head mournfully. 
" If she had left of her own accord, she might ; not as 'twas, sir." 

" If she should come here," said I, " I believe there is one person, here, 
more likely to discover her than any other in the world. Do you remember 
— hear what I say, with fortitude — think of your great object ! — do you 
remember Martha ? " 

"Of our town?" 

I needed no other answer than his face. 

" Do you know that she is in London ? " 

" I have seen her in the streets," he answered, with a shiver. 

" But you don't know," said I, " that Emily was charitable to her, 
with Ham's help, long before she fled from home. Nor, that, when we 
met one night, and spoke together in the room yonder, over the way, she 
listened at the door." 

" Mas'r Davy ? " he replied in astonishment. " That night when it 
snew so hard ? " 

" That night. I have never seen her since. I went back, after parting 
from you, to speak to her, but she was gone. I was unwilling to mention 
her to you then, and I am now ; but she is the person of whom I speak, 
and with whom I think we should communicate. Do you under- 
stand?" 

" Too well, sir," he replied. We had sunk our voices, almost to a 
whisper, and continued to speak in that tone. 

" You say you have seen her. Do you think that you could find her ? 
I could only hope to do so by chance." 

" I think, Mas'r Davy, I know wheer to look." 

" It is dark. Being together, shall we go out now, and try to find her 
tonight?" 

He assented, and prepared to accompany me. Without appearing to 
observe what he was doing, I saw how carefully he adjusted the little 
room, put a candle ready and the means of lighting it, arranged the bed, 
and finally took out of a drawer one of her dresses (I remembered to have 
seen her wear it), neatly folded with some other garments, and a bonnet, 
which he placed upon a chair. He made no allusion to these clothes, neither 
did I. There they had been waiting for her, many and many a night, no 
doubt. 

" The time was, Mas'r Davy," he said, as we came down stairs, " when 
I thowt this girl, Martha, a'most like the dirt underneath my Em'ly's feet. 
God forgive me, there 's a difference now ! " 

As we went along, partly to hold him in conversation, and partly to 
satisfy myself, I asked him about Ham. He said, almost in the same 
words as formerly, that Ham was just the same, "wearing away his life 
with kiender no care nohow for 't ; but never murmuring, and liked 
by all." 

.1 asked him what he thought Ham's state of mind was, in reference to 
the cause of their misfortunes ? Whether he believed it was dangerous ? 



480 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

What lie supposed, for example, Ham would do, if he and Steerforth ever 
should encounter ? 

" I doen't know, sir," he replied. " I have thowt of it oftentimes, but 
I can't arrize myself of it, no matters." 

I recalled to his remembrance the morning after her departure, when 
we were all three on the beach. " Do you recollect," said I, " a certain 
wild way in which he looked out to sea, and spoke about ' the end of it.' " 

" Sure I do ! " said he. 

" What do you suppose he meant ? " 

"Mas'r Davy," he replied, "I've put the question to myself amort 
o' times, and never found no answer. And theer 's one curous thing — 
that, though he is so pleasant, I wouldn't fare to feel comfortable to try 
and get his mind upon 't. He never said a wured to me as warn't as 
dootiful as dootiful could be, and it ain't likely as he 'd begin to speak 
any other ways now ; but it 's fur from being fleet water in his mind, 
where them thowts lays. It 's deep, sir, and I can't see down." 

" You are right," said I, "and that has sometimes made me anxious." 

" And me too, Mas'r Davy," he rejoined. " Even more so, I do assure 
you, than his ventersome ways, though both belongs to the alteration in 
him. I doen't know as he 'd do violence under any circumstarnces, but I 
hope as them two may be kep asunders." 

We had come, through Temple Bar, into the city. Conversing no more 
now, and walking at my side, he yielded himself up to the one aim 
of his devoted life, and went on, with that hushed concentration of his 
faculties which would have made his figure solitary in a multitude. We 
were not far from Blackfriars Bridge, when he turned his head and pointed 
to a solitary female figure flitting along the opposite side of the street. 
I knew it, readily, to be the figure that we sought. 

We crossed the road, and were pressing on towards her, when it occurred 
to me that she might be more disposed to feel a woman's interest in the 
lost girl, if we spoke to her in a quieter place, aloof from the crowd, and 
where we should be less observed. I advised my companion, therefore, 
that we should not address her yet, but follow her ; consulting in this, 
likewise, an indistinct desire I had, to know where she went. 

He acquiescing, we followed at a distance : never losing sight of her, 
but never caring to come very near, as she frequently looked about. 
Once, she stopped to listen to a band of music ; and then we stopped too. 

She went on a long way. Still we went on. It was evident, from the 
manner in which she held her course, that she was going to some fixed 
destination ; and this, and her keeping in the busy streets, and, I suppose 
the strange fascination in the secresy and mystery of so following any one, 
made me adhere to my first purpose. At length she turned into a dull, 
dark street, where the noise and crowd were lost ; and I said, " We may 
speak to her now ;" and, mending our pace, we went after her. 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 481 



CHAPTER XL VII. 



MARTHA. 



We were now down in Westminster. We had turned back to follow 
her, having encountered her coming towards us ; and Westminster Abbey 
was the point at which she passed from the lights and noise of the leading 
streets. She proceeded so quickly, when she got free of the two currents 
of passengers setting towards and from the bridge, that, between this and 
the advance she had of us when she struck off, we were in the narrow 
water-side street by Millbank before we came up with her. At that 
moment she crossed the road, as if to avoid the footsteps that she heard 
so close behind ; and, without looking back, passed on even more rapidly. 

A glimpse of the river through a dull gateway, where some waggons 
were housed for the night, seemed to arrest my feet. I touched my com- 
panion without speaking, and we both forbore to cross after her, and both 
followed on that opposite side of the way ; keeping as quietly as we could 
in the shadow of the houses, but keeping very near her. 

There was, and is when I write, at the end of that low-lying street, a 
dilapidated little wooden building, probably an obsolete old ferry-house. 
Its position is just at that point where the street ceases, and the road begins 
to lie between a row of houses and the river. As soon as she came here, 
and saw the water, she stopped as if she had come to her destination ; and 
presently went slowly along by the brink of the river, looking intently at it. 

All the way here, I had supposed that she was going to some house ; 
indeed, I had vaguely entertained the hope that the house might be in some 
way associated with the lost girl. But, that one dark glimpse of the river, 
through the gateway, had instinctively prepared me for her going no 
farther. 

The neighbourhood was a dreary one at that time ; as oppressive, sad, 
and solitary by night, as any about London. There were neither wharves 
nor houses on the melancholy waste of road near the great blank Prison. 
A sluggish ditch deposited its mud at the prison walls. Coarse grass and 
rank weeds straggled over all the marshy land in the vicinity. In one 
part, carcases of houses, inauspiciously begun and never finished, rotted 
away. In another, the ground was cumbered with rusty iron monsters of 
steam-boilers, wheels, cranks, pipes, furnaces, paddles, anchors, diving- 
bells, windmill-sails, and I know not what strange objects, accumulated 
by some speculator, and grovelling in the dust, underneath which— 
having sunk into the soil of their own weight in wet weather — they had 
the appearance of vainly trying to hide themselves. The clash and 
glare of sundry fiery Works upon the river side, arose by night to disturb 
everything except the heavy and unbroken smoke that poured out of their 
chimneys. Slimy gaps and causeways, winding among old wooden piles, 
with a sickly substance clinging to the latter, like green hair, and the rags 
of last year's handbills offering rewards for drowned men fluttering above 

I I 



482 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

high -water mark, led down through the ooze and slush to the ebb tide. 
There was a story that one of the pits dug for the dead in the time of the 
Great Plague was hereabout ; and a blighting influence seemed to have 
proceeded from it over the whole place. Or else it looked as if it had 
gradually decomposed into that nightmare condition, out of the overflowings 
of the polluted stream. 

As if she were a part of the refuse it had cast out, and left to corruption 
and decay, the girl we had followed strayed down to the river's brink, 
and stood in the midst of this night-picture, lonely and still, looking at the 
water. 

There were some boats and barges astrand in the mud, and these 
enabled us to come within a few yards of her without being seen. I then 
signed to Mr. Peggotty to remain where he was, and emerged from their 
shade to speak to her. I did not approach her solitary figure without 
trembling ; for this gloomy end to her determined walk, and the way in 
which she stood, almost within the cavernous shadow of the iron bridge, 
looking at the lights crookedly reflected in the strong tide, inspired a 
dread within me. 

I think she was talking to herself. I am sure, although absorbed in 
gazing at the water, that her shawl was off her shoulders, and that she 
was muffling her hands in it, in an unsettled and bewildered way, more like 
the action of a sleep-walker than a waking person. I know, and never can 
forget, that there was that in her wild manner which gave me no assurance 
but that she would sink before my eyes, until I had her arm within my grasp. 

At the same moment I said " Martha ! " 

She uttered a terrified scream, and struggled with me with such 
strength that I doubt if I could have held her alone. But a stronger hand 
than mine was laid upon her; and when she raised her frightened eyes 
and saw whose it was, she made but one more effort, and dropped down 
between us. We carried her away from the water to where there were 
some dry stones, and there laid her down, crying and moaning. In a little 
while she sat among the stones, holding her wretched head with both her 
hands. 

" Oh, the river ! " she cried passionately. " Oh, the river ! " 

" Hush, hush ! " said I. " Calm yourself." 

But she still repeated the same words, continually exclaiming, " Oh, the 
river ! " over and over again. 

" I know it 's like me ! " she exclaimed. " I know that I belong to it. 
I know that it 's the natural company of such as I am ! It comes 
from country places, where there was once no harm in it — and it 
creeps through the dismal streets, denied and miserable — and it goes 
away, like my life, to a great sea, that is always troubled — and I feel that 
I must go with it ! " 

I have never known what despair was, except in the tone of those words. 

"I can't keep away from it. I can't forget it. It haunts me day and 
night. It 's the only thing in all the world that I am fit for, or that 's 
fit for me. Oh, the dreadful river ! " 

The thought passed through my mind that in the face of my com- 
panion, as he looked upon her without speech or motion, I might have 
read his niece's history, if I had known nothing of it. I never saw, in 



OF DAVID COPPESFIELD. 483 

any painting or reality, horror and compassion so impressively blended. 
He shook as if he would have fallen ; and his hand — I touched it with my 
own, for his appearance alarmed me — was deadly cold. 

" She is in a state of frenzy," I whispered to him. " She will speak 
differently in a little time." 

I don't know what he would have said in answer. He made some 
motion with his mouth, and seemed to think he had spoken ; but he had 
only pointed to her with his outstretched hand. 

A new burst of crying came upon her now, in which she once more hid 
her face among the stones, and lay before us, a prostrate image of humili- 
ation and ruin. Knowing that this state must pass, before we could 
speak to her with any hope, I ventured to restrain him when he would 
have raised her, and we stood by in silence until she became more 
tranquil. 

" Martha," said I then, leaning down, and helping her to rise — she 
seemed to want to rise as if with the intention of going away, but she was 
weak, and leaned against a boat. " Do you know who this is, who is 
with me?" 

She said faintly, "Yes." 

" Do you know that we have followed you a long way to-night?" 

She shook her head. She looked neither at him nor at me, but stood 
in a humbled attitude, holding her bonnet and shawl in one hand, without 
appearing conscious of them, and pressing the other, clenched, against 
her forehead. 

"Are you composed enough," said I, " to speak on the subject which 
so interested you — I hope Heaven may remember it! — that snowy 
night?" 

Her sobs broke out afresh, and she murmured some inarticulate thanks 
to me for not having driven her away from the door. 

" I want to say nothing for myself," she said, after a few moments. 
" I am bad, I am lost. I have no hope at all. But tell him, sir," she 
had shrunk away from him, " if you don't feel too hard to me to do it, 
that I never was in any way the cause of his misfortune." 

" It has never been attributed to you," I returned, earnestly responding 
to her earnestness. 

" It was you, if I don't deceive myself," she said, in a broken voice, 
" that came into the kitchen, the night she took such pity on me ; was 
so gentle to me ; didn't shrink away from me like all the rest, and gave 
me such kind help ! Was it you, sir ? " 

" It was," said I. 

" I should have been in the river long ago," she said, glancing at it 
with a terrible expression, " if any wrong to her had been upon my mind. 
I never could have kept out of it a single winter's night, if I had not been 
free of any share in that ! " 

" The cause of her flight is too well understood," I said. " You are 
innocent of any part in it, we thoroughly believe, — we know." 

" Oh I might have been much the better for her, if I had had a better 
heart ! " exclaimed the girl, with most forlorn regret ; " for she was 
always good to me ! She never spoke a word to me but what was pleasant 
and right. Is it likely I would try to make her what I am myself, knowing 

ii 2 



484 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

what I am myself, so well! When I lost everything that makes life 
dear, the worst of all my thoughts was that I was parted for ever from 
her ! " 

Mr. Peggotty, standing with one hand on the gunwale of the boat, and 
his eyes cast down, put his disengaged hand before his face. 

" And when I heard what had happened before that snowy night, from 
some belonging to our town," cried Martha, " the bitterest thought in all 
my mind was, that the people would remember she once kept company 
with me, and would say I had corrupted her ! When, Heaven knows, I 
would have died to have brought back her good name ! " 

Long unused to any self-control, the piercing agony of her remorse 
and grief was terrible. 

" To have died, would not have been much — what can I say ? — I would 
have lived ! " she cried. " I would have lived to be old, in the wretched 
streets — and to wander about, avoided, in the dark — and to see the day 
break on the ghastly lines of houses, and remember how the same sun 
used to shine into my room, and wake me once — I would have done even 
that, to save her ! " 

Sinking on the stones, she took some in each hand, and clenched 
them up, as if she would have ground them. She writhed into some new 
posture constantly ■ stiffening her arms, twisting them before her face, 
as though to shut out from her eyes the little light there was, and droop- 
ing her head, as if it were heavy with insupportable recollections. 

" What shall I ever do ! " she said, fighting thus with her despair. 
"How can I go on as I am, a solitary curse to myself, a living disgrace 
to every one I come near ! " Suddenly she turned to my companion. 
" Stamp upon me, kill me ! When she was your pride, you would 
have thought I had done her harm if I had brushed against her in the 
street. You can't believe — why should you ? — a syllable that comes out 
of my lips. It would be a burning shame upon you, even now, if she 
and I exchanged a word. I don't complain. I don't say she and I are 
alike — I know there is a long, long way between us. I only say, with all 
my guilt and wretchedness upon my head, that I am grateful to her from 
my soul, and love her. Oh don't think that all the power I had of loving 
anything, is quite worn out ! Throw me away, as all the world does. 
Kill me for being what I am, and having ever known her ; but don't 
think that of me ! " 

He looked upon her, while she made this supplication, in a wild 
distracted manner ; and, when she was silent, gently raised her. 

" Martha," said Mr. Peggotty, " God forbid as I should judge you. 
Forbid as I, of all men, should do that, my girl ! You doen't know 
half the change that 's come, in course of time, upon me, when -you 
think it likely. Well ! " he paused a moment, then went on. " You 
doen't understand how 'tis that this here gentleman and me has wished to 
speak to you. You doen't understand what 'tis we has afore us. 
Listen now ! " 

His influence upon her was complete. She stood, shrinkingly, before 
him, as if she were afraid to meet his eyes ; but her passionate sorrow was 
quite hushed and mute. 

" If you heerd," said Mr. Peggotty, " owt of what passed between 



OF DAVID COPPERPIELD. 485 

Mas'r Davy and me, tli' night when it snew so hard, you know as I have 
been — wheer not — fur to seek my dear niece. My dear niece," he repeated 
steadily. " Pur she 's more dear to me now, Martha, than ever she was 
dear afore." 

She put her hands before her face ; but otherwise remained quiet. 

" I have heerd her tell," said Mr. Peggotty, " as you was early left 
fatherless and motherless, with no friend fur to take, in a rough seafaring- 
way, their place. Maybe you can guess that if you 'd had such a friend, 
you 'd have got into a way of being fond of him in course of time, and 
that my niece was kiender daughter-like to me." 

As she was silently trembling, he put her shawl carefully about her, 
taking it up from the ground for that purpose. 

" Whereby," said he, " I know, both as she would go to the wureld's 
furdest end with me, if she could once see me again ; and that she would 
fly to the wureld's furdest end to keep off seeing me. For though she ain't 
no call to doubt my love, and doen't — and doen't," he repeated, with a 
quiet assurance of the truth of what he said, " there 's shame steps in, 
and keeps betwixt us." 

I read, in every word of his plain impressive way of delivering himself, 
new evidence of his having thought of this one topic, in every feature it 
presented. 

"According to our reckoning," he proceeded, " Mas'r Davy's here, and 
mine, she is like, one day, to make her own poor solitary course to 
London. We believe — Mas'r Davy, me, and all of us — that you are as 
innocent of everything that has befel her, as the unborn child. You 've 
spoke of her being pleasant, kind, and gentle to you. Bless her, I knew 
she was ! I knew she always was, to all. You 're thankful to her, and 
you love her. Help us all you can to find her, and may Heaven reward 

She looked at him hastily, and for the first time, as if she were doubtful 
of what he had said. 

" Will you trust me ? " she asked, in a low voice of astonishment. 

" Pull and free ! " said Mr. Peggotty. 

" To speak to her, if I should ever find her ; shelter her, if I have any 
shelter to divide with her ; and then, without her knowledge, come to 
you, and bring you to her ? " she asked hurriedly. 

We both replied together, " Yes ! " 

She lifted up her eyes, and solemnly declared that she would devote 
herself to this task, fervently and faithfully. That she would never waver 
in it, never be diverted from it, never relinquish it, while there was any 
chance of hope. If she were not true to it, might the object she now had 
in life, which bound her to something devoid of evil, in its passing away 
from her, leave her more forlorn and more despairing, if that were possible, 
than she had been upon the river's brink that night ; and then might all 
help, human and Divine, renounce her evermore ! 

She did not raise her voice above her breath, or address us, but said 
this to the night sky ; then stood profoundly quiet, looking at the gloomy 
water. 

We judged it expedient, now, to tell her all we knew ; which I 
recounted at length. She listened with great attention, and with a face 



486 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

that often changed, but had the same purpose in all its varying expressions. 
Her eyes occasionally filled with tears, but those she repressed. It seemed 
as if her spirit were quite altered, and she could not be too quiet. 

She asked, when all was told, where we were to be communicated with, 
if occasion should arise. Under a dull lamp in the road, I wrote our two 
addresses on a leaf of my pocket-book, which I tore out and gave to her, 
and which she put in her poor bosom. I asked her where she lived herself. 
She said, after a pause, in no place long. It were better not to know. 

Mr. Peggotty suggesting to me, in a whisper, what had already occurred 
to myself, I took out my purse ; but I could not prevail upon her to 
accept any money, nor could I exact any promise from her that she would 
do so at another time. I represented to her that Mr. Peggotty could not 
be called, for one in his condition, poor ; and that the idea of her engaging 
in this search, while depending on her own resources, shocked us both. 
She continued steadfast. In this particular, his influence upon her was 
equally powerless with mine. She gratefully thanked him, but remained 
inexorable. 

" There may be work to be got," she said. " I '11 try." 

" At least take some assistance," I returned, " until you have tried." 

" I could not do what I have promised, for money," she replied. " I 
could not take it, if I was starving. To give me money would be to take 
away your trust, to take away the object that you have given me, to take 
away the only certain thing that saves me from the river." 

" In the name of the great Judge," said I, " before whom you and all 
of us must stand at his dread time, dismiss that terrible idea ! We can 
all do some good, if we will." 

She trembled, and her lip shook, and her face was paler, as she answered : 

" It has been put in your hearts, perhaps, to save a wretched creature for 
repentance. I am afraid to think so ; it seems too bold. If any good 
should come of me, I might begin to hope ; for nothing but harm has ever 
come of my deeds yet. I am to be trusted, for the first time in a long 
while, with my miserable life, on account of what you have given me to 
try for. I know no more, and I can say no more." 

Again she repressed the tears that had begun to flow ; and, putting out 
her trembling hand, and touching Mr. Peggotty, as if there were some 
healing virtue in him, went away along the desolate road. She had been 
ill, probably for a long time. I observed, upon that closer opportunity 
of observation, that she was worn and haggard, and that her sunken eyes 
expressed privation and endurance. 

We followed her at a short distance, our way lying in the same direc- 
tion, until we came back into the lighted and populous streets. I 
had such implicit confidence in her declaration, that I then put it to Mr. 
Peggotty, whether it would not seem, in the onset, like distrusting her, to 
follow her any further. He being of the same mind, and equally reliant on 
her, we suffered her to take her own road, and took ours, which was to- 
wards Highgate. He accompanied me a good part of the way ; and when 
w r e parted, with a prayer for the success of this fresh effort, there was a 
new and thoughtful compassion in him that I was at no loss to interpret. 

It was midnight when I arrived at home. I had reached my own gate, 
and was standing listening for the deep bell of Saint Paul's, the sound of 



OF DAVID COPPERFIBLD. 487 

wliicli I thought had been borne towards me among the multitude of 
striking clocks, when I was rather surprised to see that the door of my 
aunt's cottage was open, and that a faint light in the entry was shining 
out across the road. 

Thinking that my aunt might have relapsed into one of her old alarms, 
and might be watching the progress of some imaginary conflagration in 
the distance, I went to speak to her. It was with very great surprise that 
I saw a man standing in her little garden. 

He had a glass and bottle in his hand, and was in the act of drinking. 
I stopped short, among the thick foliage outside, for the moon was up 
now, though obscured ; and I recognised the man whom I had once sup- 
posed to be a delusion of Mr. Dick's, and had once encountered with my 
aunt in the streets of the city. 

He was eating as well as drinking, and seemed to eat with a hungry 
appetite. He seemed curious regarding the cottage, too, as if it were the 
first time he had seen it. After stooping to put the bottle on the ground, 
he looked up at the windows, and looked about ; though with a covert 
and impatient air, as if he was anxious to be gone. 

The light in the passage was obscured for a moment, and my aunt came 
out. She was agitated, and told some money into his hand. I heard it 
chink. 

" What 's the use of this ? " he demanded. 

" I can spare no more," returned my aunt. 

" Then I can't go," said he. " Here ! You may take it back ! " 

"You bad man," returned my aunt, with great emotion; "how can 
you use me so ? But why do I ask ? It is because you know how weak 
I am ! What have I to do, to free myself for ever of your visits, but to 
abandon you to your deserts ? " 

"And why don't you abandon me to my deserts ? " said he. 

" You ask me why ! " returned my aunt. " What a heart you must 
have ! " 

He stood moodily rattling the money, and shaking his head, until at 
length he said : 

" Is this all you mean to give me, then ? " 

" It is all I can give you," said my aunt. " You know I have had 
losses, and am poorer than I used to be. I have told you so. Having 
got it, why do you give me the pain of looking at you for another moment, 
and seeing what you have become ? " 

" I have become shabby enough, if you mean that," he said. " I lead 
the life of an owl." 

" You stripped me of the greater part of all I ever had," said my aunt. 
" You closed my heart against the whole world, years and years. You 
treated me falsely, ungratefully, and cruelly. Go, and repent of it. Don't 
add new injuries to the long, long list of injuries you have done me ! " 

"Aye! "he returned. "It's all very fine ! — Well! I must do the 
best I can, for the present, I suppose." 

In spite of himself, he appeared abashed by my aunt's indignant tears, 
and came slouching out of the garden. Taking two or three quick steps, 
as if I had just come up, I met him at the gate, and went in as he came 
out. We eyed one another narrowly in passing, and with no favour. 



488 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Aunt," said I, hurriedly. " This man alarming you again ! Let me 
speak to him. Who is he ? " 

" Child," returned my aunt, taking my arm, " come in, and don't 
speak to me for ten minutes." 

We sat down in her little parlor. My aunt retired behind the round 
green fan of former days, which was screwed on the back of a chair, and 
occasionally wiped her eyes, for about a quarter of an hour. Then she 
came out, and took a seat beside me. 

" Trot," said my aunt, calmly, "it's my husband." 

" Your husband, aunt ? I thought he had been dead ! " 

" Dead to me," returned my aunt, " but living." 

I sat in silent amazement. 

" Betsey Trotwood don't look a likely subject for the tender passion," 
said my aunt, composedly, " but the time was, Trot, when she believed in 
that man most entirely. When she loved him, Trot, right well. When 
there was no proof of attachment and affection that she would not have 
given him. He repaid her by breaking her fortune, and nearly breaking 
her heart. So she put all that sort of sentiment, once and for ever in a 
grave, and filled it up, and flattened it down." 

" My dear, good aunt ! " 

" I left him," my aunt proceeded, laying her hand as usual on the back 
of mine, " generously. I may say at this distance of time, Trot, that I 
left him generously. He had been so cruel to me, that I might have 
effected a separation on easy terms for myself; but I did not. He soon 
made ducks and drakes of what I gave him, sank lower and lower, 
married another woman, I believe, became an adventurer, a gambler, and 
a cheat. What he is now, you see. But he was a fine-looking man when 
I married him," said my aunt, with an echo of her old pride and admira- 
tion in her tone ; " and I believed him — I was a fool ! — to be the soul of 
honor ! " 

She gave my hand a squeeze, and shook her head. 

■* He is nothing to me now, Trot, — less than nothing. But, sooner than 
have him punished for his offences (as he would be if he prowled about 
in this country), I give him more money than I can afford, at intervals 
when he reappears, to go away. I was a fool when I married him ; and I 
am so far an incurable fool on that subject, that, for the sake of what I 
once believed him. to be, I wouldn't have even this shadow of my idle 
fancy hardly dealt with. For I was in earnest, Trot, if ever a woman 
was." 

My aunt dismissed the matter with a heavy sigh, and smoothed her 
dress. 

" There, my dear ! " she said. " Now, you know the beginning, middle, 
and end, and all about it. We won't mention the subject to one another 
any more ; neither, of course, will you mention it to anybody else. This 
is my grumpy, frumpy story, and we'll keep it to ourselves, Trot ! " 



OF DAVID COPPEEEIELD. 489 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 

DOMESTIC. 

I labored hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the 
punctual discharge of my newspaper duties ; and it came out and was 
very successful. I was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my 
ears, notwithstanding that I was keenly alive to it, and thought better of 
my own performance, I have little doubt, than anybody else did. It has 
always been in my observation of human nature, that a man who has any 
good reason to believe in himself never flourishes himself before the faces 
of other people in order that they may believe in him. Eor this reason, I 
retained my modesty in very self-respect ; and the more praise I got, the 
more I tried to deserve. 

It is not my purpose, in this record, though in all other essentials it is 
my written memory, to pursue the history of my own fictions. They 
express themselves, and I leave them to themselves. "When I refer to them, 
incidentally, it is only as a part of my progress. 

Having some foundation for believing, by this time, that nature and 
accident had made me an author, I pursued my vocation with confidence. 
Without such assurance I should certainly have left it alone, and bestowed 
my energy on some other endeavour. I should have tried to find out what 
nature and accident really had made me, and to be that, and nothing else. 

I had been writing, in the newspaper and elsewhere, so prosperously, 
that when my new success was achieved, I considered myself reasonably 
entitled to escape from the dreary debates. One joyful night, therefore, I 
noted down the music of the parliamentary bagpipes for the last time, and 
I have never heard it since ; though I still recognise the old drone in the 
newspapers, without any substantial variation (except, perhaps, that there 
is more of it), all the livelong session. 

I now write of the time when I had been married, I suppose, about a 
year and a half. After several varieties of experiment, we had given up 
the housekeeping as a bad job. The house kept itself, and we kept a 
page. The principal function of this retainer was to quarrel with the 
cook ; in which respect he was a perfect Whittington, without his cat, or 
the remotest chance of being made Lord Mayor. 

He appears to me to have lived in a hail of saucepan-lids. His whole 
existence was a scuffle. He would shriek for help on the most improper 
occasions, — as, when we had a little dinner party, or a few friends in the 
evening, — and would come tumbling out of the kitchen, with iron missiles 
flying after him. We wanted to get rid of him, but he was very much 
attached to us, and wouldn't go. He was a tearful boy, and broke into 
such deplorable lamentations, when a cessation of our connexion was 
hinted at, that we were obliged to keep him. He had no mother — no 
anything in the way of a relative, that I could discover, except a sister, 
who fled to America the moment we had taken him off her hands : and he 



490 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

became quartered on us like a horrible young changeling. He had a lively 
perception of his own unfortunate state, and was always rubbing his eyes 
with the sleeve of his jacket, or stooping to blow his nose on the extreme 
corner of a little pocket-handkerchief, which he never would take completely 
out of his pocket, but always economised and secreted. 

This unlucky page, engaged in an evil hour at six pounds ten per 
annum, was a source of continual trouble to me. I watched him as he 
grew — and he grew like scarlet beans — with painful apprehensions of the 
time when he would begin to shave ; even of the days when he would be 
bald or grey. I saw no prospect of ever getting rid of him ; and, project- 
ing myself into the future, used to think what an inconvenience he would 
be when he was an old man. 

I never expected anything less, than this unfortunate's manner of getting 
me out of my difficulty. He stole Dora's watch, which, like everything 
else belonging to us, had no particular place of its own ; and, converting 
it into money, spent the produce (he was always a weak-minded boy) in 
incessantly riding up and down between London and Uxbridge outside 
the coach. He was taken to Bow Street, as well as I remember, on 
the completion of his fifteenth journey ; when four-and-sixpence, and a 
second-hand fife which he couldn't play, were found upon his person. 

The surprise and its consequences would have been much less disagree- 
able to me if he had not been penitent. But he was very penitent indeed, and 
in a peculiar way — not in the lump, but by instalments. For example ; the 
day after that on which I was obliged to appear against him, he made certain 
revelations touching a hamper in the cellar, which we believed to be full 
of wine, but which had nothing in it except bottles and corks. We 
supposed he had now eased his mind, and told the worst he knew of the 
cook ; but, a day or two afterwards, his conscience sustained a new twinge, 
and he disclosed how she had a little girl, who, early every morning, took 
away our bread ; and also how he himself had been suborned to maintain 
the milkman in coals. In two or three days more, I was informed by the 
authorities of his having led to the discovery of sirloins of beef among the 
kitchen-stuff, and sheets in the rag-bag. A little while afterwards, he 
broke out in an entirely new direction, and confessed to a knowledge of 
burglarious intentions as to our premises, on the part of the pot-boy, who 
was immediately taken up. I got to be so ashamed of being such a victim, 
that I would have given him any money to hold his tongue, or would 
have offered a round bribe for his being permitted to run away. It was an 
aggravating circumstance in the case that he had no idea of this, but con- 
ceived that he was making me amends in every new discovery : not to 
say, heaping obligations on my head. 

At last I ran away myself, whenever I saw an emissary of the police 
approaching with some new intelligence ; and lived a stealthy life until he 
was tried and ordered to be transported. Even then he couldn't be quiet, 
but was always writing us letters ; and wanted so much to see Dora before 
he went away, that Dora went to visit him, and fainted when she found 
herself inside the iron bars. In short I had no peace of my life until he 
was expatriated, and made (as I afterwards heard) a shepherd of, " up 
the country" somewhere; I have no geographical idea where. 

All this led me into some serious reflections, and presented our mistakes 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 491 

in a new aspect ; as I could not help communicating to Dora one evening, 
in spite of my tenderness for her. 

" My love," said I, " it is very painful to me to think that our want of 
system and management, involves not only ourselves (which we have got 
used to), but other people." 

" You have been silent for a long time, and now you are going to be 
cross ! " said Dora. 

"No, my dear, indeed ! Let me explain to you what I mean." 

" I think I don't want to know," said Dora. 

" But I want you to know, my love. Put Jip down." 

Dora put his nose to mine, and said " Boh ! " to drive my seriousness 
away ; but, not succeeding, ordered him into his Pagoda, and sat looking 
at me, with her hands folded, and a most resigned little expression of 
countenance. 

" The fact is, my dear," I began, " there is contagion in us. We infect 
everyone about us." 

I might have gone on in this figurative manner, if Dora's face had not 
admonished me that she was wondering with all her might whether I was 
going to propose any new kind of vaccination, or other medical remedy, 
for this unwholesome state of ours. Therefore I checked myself, and 
made my meaning plainer. 

"It is not merely, my pet," said I, "that we lose money and comfort, 
and even temper sometimes, by not learning to be more careful ; but that 
we incur the serious responsibility of spoiling everyone who comes into 
our service, or has any dealings with us. I begin to be afraid that the 
fault is not entirely on one side, but that these people all turn out ill 
because we don't turn out very well ourselves." 

" Oh, what an accusation," exclaimed Dora, opening her eyes wide ; 
"to say that you ever saw me take gold watches I Oh ! " 

" My dearest," I remonstrated, " don't talk preposterous nonsense ! 
Who has made the least allusion to gold watches ? " 

"You did," returned Dora. " You know you did. You said I hadn't 
turned out well, and compared me to him." 

"To whom?" I asked. 

" To the page," sobbed Dora. " Oh, you cruel fellow, to compare your 
affectionate wife to a transported page ! Why didn't you tell me your 
opinion of me before we were married ? Why didn't you say, you hard- 
hearted thing, that you were convinced I was worse than a transported 
page ? Oh, what a dreadful opinion to have of me ! Oh, my goodness ! " 

"Now, Dora, my love," I returned, gently trying to remove the hand- 
kerchief she pressed to her eyes, " this is not only very ridiculous of you, 
but very wrong. In the first place, it 's not true." 

" You always said he was a story-teller," sobbed Dora. " And now 
you say the same of me ! Oh, what shall I do ! What shall I do ! " 

" My darling girl," I retorted, " I really must entreat you to be reason- 
able, and listen to what I did say, and do say. My dear Dora, unless we 
learn to do our duty to those whom we employ, they will never learn to 
do their duty to us. I am afraid we present opportunities to people to do 
wrong, that never ought to be presented. Even if we were as lax as we are, 
in all our arrangements, by choice — which we are not — even if we liked it, 



492 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

and found it agreeable to be so — which we don't — I am persuaded we should 
have no right to go on in this way. We are positively corrupting people. 
We are bound to think of that. I can't help thinking of it, Dora. It is 
a reflection I am unable to dismiss, and it sometimes makes me very 
uneasy. There, dear, that 's all. Come now ! Don't be foolish ! " 

Dora would not allow me, for a long time, to remove the handkerchief. 
She sat sobbing and murmuring behind it, that, if I was uneasy, why had 
I ever been married ? Why hadn't I said, even the day before we went 
to church, that I knew I should be uneasy, and I would rather not ? If 
I couldn't bear her, why didn't I send her away to her aunts at Putney, 
or to Julia Mills in India ? Julia would be glad to see her, and would 
not call her a transported page ; Julia never had called her anything of 
the sort. In short, Dora was so afflicted, and so afflicted me by being in 
that condition, that I felt it was of no use repeating this kind of effort, 
though never so mildly, and I must take some other course. 

What other course was left to take ! To " form her mind ? " This was 
a common phrase of words which had a fair and promising sound, and I 
resolved to form Dora's mind. 

I began immediately. When Dora was very childish, and I would 
have infinitely preferred to" humour her, I tried to be grave — and discon- 
certed her, and myself too. I talked to her on the subjects which occu- 
pied my thoughts ; and I read Shakespeare to her — and fatigued her to 
the last degree. I accustomed myself to giving her, as it were quite 
casually, little scraps of useful information, or sound opinion — and she 
started from them when I let them off, as if they had been crackers. No 
matter how incidentally or naturally I endeavoured to form my little wife's 
mind, I could not help seeing that she always had an instinctive percep- 
tion of what I was about, and became a prey to the keenest apprehen- 
sions. In particular, it was clear to me, that she thought Shakespeare a 
terrible fellow. The formation went on very slowly. 

I pressed Traddles into the service without his knowledge ; and when- 
ever he came to see us, exploded my mines upon him for the edification 
of Dora at second hand. The amount of practical wisdom I bestowed 
upon Traddles in this manner was immense, and of the best quality ; but 
it had no other effect upon Dora than to depress her spirits, and make her 
always nervous with the dread that it would be her turn next. I found 
myself in the condition of a schoolmaster, a trap, a pitfall ; of always 
playing spider to Dora's fly, and always pouncing out of my hole to her 
infinite disturbance. 

Still, looking forward through this intermediate stage, to the time when 
there should be a perfect sympathy between Dora and me, and when I 
should have "formed her mind" to my entire satisfaction, I persevered, 
even for months. Finding at last, however, that, although I had been all 
this time a very porcupine or hedgehog, bristling all over with determi- 
nation, I had effected nothing, it began to occur to me that perhaps Dora's 
mind was already formed. 

On farther consideration this appeared so likely, that I abandoned my 
scheme, which had had a more promising appearance in words than 
in action ; resolving henceforth to be satisfied with my child-wife, and to 
try to change her into nothing else by any process. I was heartily tired 



OF DAVID COPPEREIELD. 493 

of being sagacious and prudent by myself, and of seeing my darling under 
restraint ; so, I bought a pretty pair of ear-rings for her, and a collar for 
Jip, and went home one day to make myself agreeable. 

Dora was delighted with the little presents, and kissed me joyfully ; but, 
there was a shadow between us, however slight, and I had made up my 
mind that it should not be there. If there must be such a shadow any- 
where, I would keep it for the future in my own breast. 

I sat down by my wife on the sofa, and put the ear-rings in her ears ; 
and then I told her that I feared we had not been quite as good company 
lately, as we used to be, and that the fault was mine. Which I sincerely 
felt, and which indeed it was. 

" The truth is, Dora, my life," I said ; " I have been trying to be wise." 

" And to make me wise too," said Dora, timidly. " Haven't you, 
Doady?" 

I nodded assent to the pretty inquiry of the raised eyebrows, and 
kissed the parted lips. 

" It 's of not a bit of use," said Dora, shaking her head, until the ear- 
rings rang again. " You know what a little thing I am, and what I 
wanted you to call me from the first. If you can't do so, I am afraid 
you '11 never like me. Are you sure you don't think, sometimes, it would 
have been better to have — " 

" Done what, my dear ? " For she made no effort to proceed. 

" Nothing ! " said Dora. 

" Nothing ? " I repeated. 

She put her arms round my neck, and laughed, and called herself by 
her favorite name of a goose, and hid her face on my shoulder in such a 
profusion of curls that it was quite a task to clear them away and see it. 

" Don't I think it would have been better to have done nothing, than to 
have tried to form my little wife's mind ? " said I, laughing at myself. 
" Is that the question ? Yes, indeed, I do." 

" Is that what you have been trying ? " cried Dora. " Oh what a 
shocking boy ! " 

" But I shall never try any more," said I. " For I love her clearly as 
she is." 

" Without a story — really ? " inquired Dora, creeping closer to me. 

" Why should I seek to change," said I, " what has been so precious to 
me for so long ! You never can show better than as your own natural 
self, my sweet Dora ; and we '11 try no conceited experiments, but go back 
to our old way, and be happy." 

" And be happy ! " returned Dora. " Yes ! All day ! And you won't 
mind things going a tiny morsel wrong, sometimes ? " 

" No, no," said I. " We must do the best we can." 

" And you won't tell me, any more, that we make other people bad," 
coaxed Dora ; " will you ? Because you know it 's so dreadfully cross." 

" No no," said I. 

"It's better for me to be stupid than uncomfortable, isn't it?" 
said Dora. 

"Better to be naturally Dora than anything else in the world." 

" In the world ! Ah Doady, it 's a large place ! " 

She shook her head, turned her delighted bright eyes up to mine, kissed 



494 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

me, broke into a merry laugh, and sprang away to put on Jip's new 
collar. 

So ended my last attempt to make any change in Dora. I had been 
unhappy in trying it ; I could not endure my own solitary wisdom ; I 
could not reconcile it with her former appeal to me as my child-wife. 
I resolved, to do what I could, in a quiet way, to improve our proceedings 
myself; but, I foresaw that my utmost would be very little, or I must 
degenerate into the spider again, and be for ever lying in wait. 

And the shadow I have mentioned, that was not to be between us any 
more, but was to rest wholly on my own heart ? How did that fall ? 

The old unhappy feeling pervaded my life. It was deepened, if it were 
changed at all ; but it was as undefined as ever, and addressed me like 
a strain of sorrowful music faintly heard in the night. I loved my wife 
dearly, and I was happy ; but the happiness I had vaguely anticipated, 
once, was not the happiness I enjoyed, and there was always something 
wanting. 

In fulfilment of the compact I have made with myself, to reflect my 
mind on this paper, I again examine it, closely, and bring its secrets to the 
light. What I missed, I still regarded — I always regarded — as something 
that had been a dream of my youthful fancy ; that was incapable of reali- 
sation ; that I was now discovering to be so, with some natural pain, as 
all men did. But, that it would have been better for me if my wife could 
have helped me more, and shared the many thoughts in which I had no 
partner ; and that this might have been ; I knew. 

Between these two irreconcileable conclusions : the one, that what I 
felt, was general and unavoidable ; the other, that it was particular to me, 
and might have been different : I balanced curiously, with no distinct 
sense of their opposition to each other. When I thought of the airy 
dreams of youth that are incapable of realisation, I thought of the better 
state preceding manhood that I had outgrown ; and then the contented 
days with Agnes, in the dear old house, arose before me, like spectres of 
the dead, that might have some renewal in another world, but never 
never more could be reanimated here. 

Sometimes, the speculation came into my thoughts, What might have 
happened, or what would have happened, if Dora and I had never known 
each other ? But, she was so incorporated with my existence, that it was 
the idlest of all fancies, and would soon rise out of my reach and sight, 
like gossamer floating in the air. 

I always loved her. What I am describing, slumbered, and half awoke, 
and slept again, in the innermost recesses of my mind. There was no 
evidence of it in me ; I know of no influence it had in anything I said 
or did. I bore the weight of all our little cares, and all my projects ; 
Dora held the pens ; and we both felt that our shares were adjusted as 
the case required. She was truly fond of me, and proud of me ; and 
when Agnes wrote a few earnest words in her letters to Dora, of the pride 
and interest with which my old friends heard of my growing reputation, 
and read my book as if they heard me speaking its contents, Dora read them 
out to me with tears of joy in her bright eyes, and said I was a dear old 
clever, famous boy. 

" The first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart." Those words 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 495 

of Mrs. Strong's were constantly recurring to me, at this time ; were 
almost always present to my mind. I awoke with them, often, in the 
night ; I remember to have even read them, in dreams, inscribed upon the 
walls of houses. For I knew, now, that my own heart was undisciplined 
when it first loved Dora ; and that if it had been disciplined, it never 
could have felt, when we were married, what it had felt in its secret- 
experience . 

" There can be no disparity in marriage, like unsuitability of mind and 
purpose." Those words I remembered too. I had endeavoured to adapt 
Dora to myself, and found it impracticable. It remained for me to adapt 
myself to Dora ; to share with her what I could, and be happy ; to bear on 
my own shoulders what I must, and be happy still. This was the dis- 
cipline to which I tried to bring my heart, when I began to think. It 
made my second year much happier than my first ; and, what was better 
still, made Dora's life all sunshine, 

But, as that year wore on, Dora was not strong. I had hoped that 
lighter hands than mine would help to mould her character, and that a 
baby-smile upon her breast might change my child-wife to a woman. It 
was not to be. The spirit fluttered for a moment on the threshold of its 
little prison, and, unconscious of captivity, took wing. 

" When I can run about again, as I used to do, aunt," said Dora, " I 
shall make Jip race. He is getting quite slow and lazy." 

"I suspect, my dear," said my aunt, quietly working by her side, "he 
has a worse disorder than that. Age, Dora." 

" Do you think he is old ?" said Dora, astonished. " Oh, how strange 
it seems that Jip should be old ! " j 

" It 's a complaint we ■ are all liable to, Little One, as we get on in 
life," said my aunt, cheerfully; "I don't feel more free from it than I 
used to be, I assure you." 

"But Jip," said Dora, looking at him with compassion, "even little 
Jip ! Oh, poor fellow ! " 

" I dare say he '11 last a long time yet, Blossom," said my aunt, patting 
Dora on the cheek> as she leaned out of her couch to look at Jip, who 
responded by standing on his hind legs, and baulking himself in various 
asthmatic attempts to scramble up by the head and shoulders. " He 
must have a piece of flannel in his house this winter, and I shouldn't 
wonder if he came out quite fresh again, with the flowers, in the spring. 
Bless the little dog ! " exclaimed my aunt, " if he had as many lives as a 
cat, and was on the point of losing 'em all, he 'd bark at me with his 
last breath, I believe ! " 

Dora had helped him up on the sofa ; where he really was defying my 
aunt to such a furious extent, that he couldn't keep straight, but barked 
himself sideways. The more my aunt looked at him, the more he 
reproached her; for, she had lately taken to spectacles, and for some 
inscrutable reason he considered the glasses personal. 

Dora made him lie down by her, with a good deal of persuasion ; and 
when he was quiet, drew one of his long ears through and through her 
hand, repeating, thoughtfully, " Even little Jip ! Oh, poor fellow ! " 

" His lungs are good enough," said my aunt, gaily, " and his dislikes 
are not at all feeble. He has a good many years before him, no doubt. 



THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

But if you want a dog to race with, Little Blossom, he has lived too well 
for that, and I '11 give you one." 

" Thank you, aunt," said Dora, faintly. " But, don't, please ! " 

" No ? " said my aunt, taking off her spectacles. 

" I could'nt have any other dog but Jip," said Dora. " It would be 
so unkind to Jip ! Besides, I couldn't be such friends with any other 
dog but Jip ; because he wouldn't have known me before I was married, 
and wouldn't have barked at Doady when he first came to our house. I 
couldn't care for any other dog but Jip, I am afraid, aunt." 

" To be sure ! " said my aunt, patting her cheek again. " You are 
right." 

" You are not offended," said Dora. " Are you ? " 

" Why, what a sensitive pet it is ! " cried my aunt, bending over her 
affectionately. " To think that I could be offended ! " 

" No, no, I didn't really think so," returned Dora; " but I am a little 
tired, and it made me silly for a moment — I am always a silly little 
thing, you know, but it made me more silly — to talk about Jip. He has 
known me in all that has happened to me, haven't you, Jip ? And I 
couldn't bear to slight him, because he was a little altered — could 
I, Jip?" 

Jip nestled closer to his mistress, and lazily licked her hand. 

" You are not so old, Jip, are you, that you'll leave your mistress yet," 
said Dora. " We may keep one another company, a little longer ! " 

My pretty Dora ! When she came down to dinner on the ensuing 
Sunday, and was so glad to see old Traddles (who always dined with us 
on Sunday), we thought she would be " running about as she used to do," 
in a few days. But they said, wait a few days more ; and then, wait a few 
days more ; and still she neither ran nor walked. She looked very pretty, 
and was very merry ; but the little feet that used to be so nimble when 
they danced round Jip, were dull and motionless. 

I began to carry her down stairs every morning, and upstairs every 
night. She would clasp me round the neck and laugh, the while, as if 
I did it for a wager. Jip would bark and caper round us, and go on 
before, and look back on the landing, breathing short, to see that we were 
coming. My aunt, the best and most cheerful of nurses, would trudge 
after us, a moving mass of shawls and pillows. Mr. Dick would not have 
relinquished his post of candle-bearer to any one alive. Traddles would 
be often at the bottom of the staircase, looking on, and taking charge of 
sportive messages from Dora to the dearest girl in the world. We made 
quite a gay procession of it, and my child-wife was the gayest there. 

But, sometimes, when I took her up, and felt that she was lighter in my 
arms, a dead blank feeling came upon me, as if I were approaching to 
some frozen region yet unseen, that numbed my life. I avoided the 
recognition of this feeling by any name, or by any communing with 
myself; until one night, w r hen it was very strong upon me, and my aunt 
had left her with a parting cry of " Good night, Little Blossom," I sat 
down at my desk alone, and cried to think, O what a fatal name it was, 
and how the blossom withered in its bloom upon the tree ! 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 497 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

I AM INVOLVED IN MYSTERY. 

I received one morning by the post, the following letter, dated Canter- 
bury, and addressed to me at Doctors' Commons; which I read with 
some surprise : 

" My dear Sir, 

" Circumstances beyond my individual control have, for a con- 
siderable lapse of time, effected a severance of that intimacy which, in the 
limited opportunities conceded to me in the midst of my professional 
duties, of contemplating the scenes and events of the past, tinged by the 
prismatic hues of memory, has ever afforded me, as it ever must con- 
tinue to afford, gratifying emotions of no common description. This fact, 
my dear sir, combined with the distinguished elevation to which your 
talents have raised you, deters me from presuming to aspire to the liberty of 
addressing the companion of my youth, by the familiar appellation of 
Copperfield ! It is sufficient to know that the name to which I do myself 
the honor to refer, will ever be treasured among the muniments of our house 
(I allude to the archives connected with our former lodgers, preserved by 
Mrs. Micawber), with sentiments of personal esteem amounting to affection. 

" It is not for one, situated, through his original errors and a fortuitous 
combination of unpropitious events, as is the foundered Bark (if he may be 
allowed to assume so maritime a denomination), who now takes up the pen 
to address you — it is not, I repeat, for one so circumstanced, to adopt the 
language of compliment, or of congratulation. That, he leaves to abler 
and to purer hands. 

" If your more important avocations should admit of your ever tracing 
these imperfect characters thus far — which may be, or may not be, as 
circumstances arise — you will naturally inquire by what object am I 
influenced, then, in inditing the present missive ? Allow me to say that 
I fully defer to the reasonable character of that inquiry, and proceed to 
develope it ; premising that it is not an object of a pecuniary nature. 

" Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may possibly 
exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring 
and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be permitted to observe, in pass- 
ing, that my brightest visions are for ever dispelled — that my peace is 
shattered and my power of enjoyment destroyed — that my heart is no longer 
in the right place — and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man. 
The canker is in the flower. The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is 
at his work, and will soon dispose of his victim. The sooner the better. 
But I will not digress. 

" Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the 
assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber's influence, though exercised in 
the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my intention to 

K K 



498 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

fly from myself for a short period, and devote a respite of eight-and-forty 
hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past enjoyment. Among 
other havens of domestic tranquillity and peace of mind, my feet will 
naturally tend towards the King's Bench Prison. In stating that I shall 
be (D. V.) on the outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration 
on civil process, the day after to-morrow, at seven in the evening, pre- 
cisely, my object in this epistolary communication is accomplished. 

" I do not feel warranted in soliciting my former friend Mr. Copper- 
field, or my former friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner Temple, if 
that gentleman is still existent and forthcoming, to condescend to meet 
me, and renew (so far as may be) our past relations of the olden time. 
I confine myself to throwing out the observation, that, at the hour and 
place I have indicated, may be found such ruined vestiges as yet 
" Remain, 

"Of 
"A 

"Fallen Tower, 

" Wilkin s Micawber. 

" P.S. It may be advisable to superadd to the above, the statement 
that Mrs. Micawber is not in confidential possession of my intentions." 

I read the letter over, several times. Making due allowance for 
Mr. Micawber's lofty style of composition, and for the extraordinary relish 
with which he sat down and wrote long letters on all possible and impos- 
sible occasions, I still believed that something important lay hidden at the 
bottom of this roundabout communication. I put it down, to think 
about it ; and took it up again, to read it once more ; and was still pur- 
suing it, when Traddles found me in the height of my perplexity. 

" My dear fellow," said I, " I never was better pleased to see you. 
You come to give me the benefit of your sober judgment at a most oppor- 
tune time. I have received a very singular letter, Traddles, from 
Mr. Micawber." 

" No? " cried Traddles. "You don't say so? And I have received 
one from Mrs. Micawber ! " 

With that, Traddles, who was flushed with walking, and whose hair, 
under the combined effects of exercise and excitement, stood on end as if 
he saw a cheerful ghost, produced his letter and made an exchange with 
me. I watched him into the heart of Mr. Micawber's letter, and returned 
the elevation of eyebrows with which he said " * Wielding the thunder- 
bolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame ! ' Bless me, 
Copperfield ! " — and then entered on the perusal of Mrs. Micawber's 
epistle. 

It ran thus : 

" My best regards to Mr. Thomas Traddles, and if he should still 
remember one who formerly had the happiness of being well acquainted 
with him, may I beg a few moments of his leisure time ? I assure 
Mr. T. T. that I would not intrude upon his kindness, were I in any other 
position than on the confines of distraction. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 499 

"Though harrowing to myself to mention, the alienation of Mr.Micawber 
(formerly so domesticated) from his wife and family, is the cause of my 
addressing my unhappy appeal to Mr. Traddles, and soliciting his best 
indulgence. Mr. T. can form no adequate idea of the change in 
Mr. Micawber's conduct, of his wildness, of his violence. It has gra- 
dually augmented, until it assumes the appearance of aberration of intellect. 
Scarcely a day passes, I assure Mr. Traddles, on which some paroxysm 
does not take place. Mr. T. will not require me to depict my feelings, 
when I inform him that I have become accustomed to hear Mr. Micawber 
assert that he has sold himself to the D. Mystery and secresy have 
long been his principal characteristic, have long replaced unlimited 
confidence. The slightest provocation, even being asked if there is any- 
thing he would prefer for dinner, causes him to express a wish for a 
separation. Last night, on being childishly solicited for twopence, to buy 
'lemon-stunners' — a local sweetmeat — he presented an oyster-knife at 
the twins ! 

" I entreat Mr. Traddles to bear with me in entering into these details. 
Without them, Mr. T. would indeed find it difficult to form the faintest 
conception of my heart-rending situation. 

"May I now venture to confide to Mr. T. the purport of my letter? 
Will he now allow me to throw myself on his friendly consideration ? Oh 
yes, for I know his heart ! 

" The quick eye of affection is not easily blinded, when of the female 
sex. Mr. Micawber is going to London. Though he studiously concealed 
his hand, this morning before breakfast, in writing the direction-card 
which he attached to the little brown valise of happier days, the eagle- 
glance of matrimonial anxiety detected d,o,n, distinctly traced. The 
West-End destination of the coach, is the Golden Cross. Dare I fervently 
implore Mr. T. to see my misguided husband, and to reason with him ? 
Dare I ask Mr. T. to endeavour to step in between Mr. Micawber and his 
agonised family ? Oh no, for that would be too much ! 

" If Mr. Copperfield should yet remember one unknown to fame, will 
Mr. T. take charge of my unalterable regards and similar entreaties? In 
any case, he will have the benevolence to consider this communication strictly 
private, and on no account loliatever to he alluded to, Jwwever distantly, in the 
presence of Mr. Micawber. If Mr. T. should ever reply to it (which I cannot 
but feel to be most improbable), a letter addressed to M. E., Post Office, 
Canterbury, will be fraught with less painful consequences than any 
addressed immediately to one, who subscribes herself, in extreme distress, 
" Mr. Thomas Traddles's respectful friend and suppliant, 

"Emma Micawber." 

" What do you think of that letter ? " said Traddles, casting his eyes 
upon me, when I had read it twice. 

"What do you think of the other? " said I. Eor he was still reading 
it with knitted brows. 

" I think that the two together, Copperfield," replied Traddles, " mean 
more than Mr. and Mrs. Micawber usually mean in their correspondence 
— but I don't know what. They are both written in good faith, I have no 
doubt, and without any collusion. Poor thing ! " he was now alluding 

k k 2 



500 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

to Mrs. Micawber's letter, and we were standing side by side comparing 
the two ; "it will be a charity to write to her, at all events, and tell her 
that we will not fail to see Mr. Micawber." 

I acceded to this, the more readily, because I now reproached myself 
with having treated her former letter rather lightly. It had set me thinking 
a good deal at the time, as I have mentioned in its place ; but my absorp- 
tion in my own affairs, my experience of the family, and my hearing 
nothing more, had gradually ended in my dismissing the subject. I had 
often thought of the Micawbers, but chiefly to wonder what " pecuniary 
liabilities" they were establishing in Canterbury, and to recall how shy 
Mr. Micawber was of me when he became clerk to Uriah Heep. 

However, I now wrote a comforting letter to Mrs. Micawber, in our 
joint names, and we both signed it. As we walked into town to post it, 
Traddles and I held a long conference, and launched into a number of 
speculations, which I need not repeat. We took my aunt into our counsels 
in the afternoon ; but our only decided conclusion was, that we would be 
very punctual in keeping Mr. Micawber's appointment. 

Although we appeared at the stipulated place a quarter of an hour 
before the time, we found Mr. Micawber already there. He was standing 
with his arms folded, over against the wall, looking at the spikes on the 
top, with a sentimental expression, as if they were the interlacing boughs 
of trees that had shaded him in his youth. 

When we accosted him, his manner was something more confused, and 
something less genteel, than of yore. He had relinquished his legal suit 
of black for the purposes of this excursion, and wore the old surtout and 
tights, but not quite with the old air. He gradually picked up more and 
more of it as we conversed with him ; but, his very eye-glass seemed to 
hang less easily, and his shirt collar, though still of the old formidable 
dimensions, rather drooped. 

" Gentlemen ! " said Mr. Micawber, after the first salutations, " you 
are friends in need, and friends indeed. Allow me to offer my inquiries 
with reference to the physical welfare of Mrs. Copperfield in esse, and 
Mrs. Traddles in posse, — presuming, that is to say, that my friend Mr. 
Traddles is not yet united to the object of his affections, for weal and 
for woe." 

We acknowledged his politeness, and made suitable replies. He then 
directed our attention to the wall, and was beginning "I assure you, 
gentlemen," when I ventured to object to that ceremonious form of 
address, and to beg that he would speak to us in the old way. 

"My dear Copperfield," he returned, pressing my hand, "your cor- 
diality overpowers me. This reception of a shattered fragment of the 
Temple once called Man — if I may be permitted so to express myself — 
bespeaks a heart that is an honor to our common nature. I was about 
to observe that I again behold the serene spot where some of the happiest 
hours of my existence fleeted by." 

" Made so, I am sure, by Mrs. Micawber," said I. " I hope she is 
well?" 

" Thank you," returned Mr. Micawber, whose face clouded at this refer- 
ence, " she is but so-so. And this," said Mr. Micawber, nodding his head 
sorrowfully, "is the Bench! Where, for the first time in many revolving 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 501 

years, the overwhelming pressure of pecuniary liabilities was not pro- 
claimed, from day to day, by importunate voices declining to vacate the 
passage ; where there was no knocker on the door for any creditor to 
appeal to; where personal service of process was not required, and 
detainers were merely lodged at the gate ! Gentlemen," said Mr. Micawber, 
"when the shadow of that iron-work on the summit of the brick structure 
has been reflected on the gravel of the Parade, I have seen my children 
thread the mazes of the intricate pattern, avoiding the dark marks. I 
have been familiar with every stone in the place. If I betray weakness, 
you will know how to excuse me." 

" We have all got on in life since then, Mr. Micawber," said I. 

" Mr. Copperfield," returned Mr. Micawber, bitterly, " when I was an 
inmate of that retreat I could look my fellow-man in the face, and punch 
his head if he offended me. My fellow-man and myself are no longer on 
those glorious terms ! " 

Turning from the building in a downcast manner, Mr. Micawber 
accepted my proffered arm on one side, and the proffered arm of Traddles 
on the other, and walked away between us. 

" There are some landmarks," observed Mr. Micawber, looking fondly 
back over his shoulder, " on the road to the tomb, which, but for the 
impiety of the aspiration, a man would wish never to have passed. Such 
is the Bench in my chequered career." 

" Oh, you are in low spirits, Mr. Micawber," said Traddles. 

" I am, sir," interposed Mr. Micawber. 

" I hope," said Traddles, " it is not because you have conceived a 
dislike to the law — for I am a lawyer myself, you know." 

Mr. Micawber answered not a word. 

" How is our friend Heep, Mr. Micawber? " said I, after a silence. 

" My dear Copperfield," returned Mr. Micawber, bursting into a state 
of much excitement, and turning pale, " if you ask after my employer as 
your friend, I am sorry for it; if you ask after him as my friend, I 
sardonically smile at it. In whatever capacity you ask after my employer, 
I beg, without offence to you, to limit my reply to this — that whatever his 
state of health may be, his appearance is foxy : not to say diabolical. You 
will allow me, as a private individual, to decline pursuing a subject which has 
lashed me to the utmost verge of desperation in my professional capacity." 

I expressed my regret for having innocently touched upon a theme that 
roused him so much. " May I ask," said I, " without any hazard of 
repeating the mistake, how my old friends Mr. and Miss Wickfield are ? " 

" Miss Wickfield," said Mr. Micawber, now turning red, " is, as she always 
is, a pattern, and a bright example. My dear Copperfield, she is the only 
starry spot in a miserable existence. My respect for that young lady, my 
admiration of her character, my devotion to her for her love and truth, 
and goodness ! — Take me," said Mr. Micawber, " down a turning, for, 
upon my soul, in my present state of mind I am not equal to this ! " 

We wheeled him off into a narrow street, where he took oat his pocket- 
handkerchief, and stood with his back to a wall. If I looked as gravely 
at him as Traddles did, he must have found our company by no means 
inspiriting. 

" It is my fate," said Mr. Micawber, unfeignedly sobbing, but doing 



502 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

even that, with a shadow of the old expression of doing something genteel ; 
" it is my fate, gentlemen, that the finer feelings of our nature have become 
reproaches to me. My homage to Miss Wickiield, is a flight of arrows in 
my bosom. You had better leave me, if you please, to walk the earth 
as a vagabond. The worm will settle my business in double-quick time." 
Without attending to this invocation, we stood by, until he put up his 
pocket-handkerchief, pulled up his shirt-collar, and, to delude any person 
in the neighbourhood who might have been observing him, hummed a 
tune with his hat very much on one side. I then mentioned — not 
knowing what might be lost, if we lost sight of him yet — that it would 
give me great pleasure to introduce him to my aunt, if he would ride out 
to Highgate, where a bed was at his service. 

" You shall make us a glass of your own punch, Mr. Micawber," 
said I, " and forget whatever you have on your mind, in pleasanter 
reminiscences." 

" Or, if confiding anything to friends will be more likely to relieve 
you, you shall impart it to us, Mr. Micawber," said Traddles, prudently. 

"Gentlemen," returned Mr. Micawber, "do with me as you will! 
I am a straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all di- 
rections by the elephants — I beg your pardon ; I should have said the 
elements." 

We walked on, arm-in-arm, again ; found the coach in the act of 
starting ; and arrived at Highgate without encountering any difficulties 
by the way. I was very uneasy and very uncertain in my mind what to 
say or do for the best — so was Traddles, evidently. Mr. Micawber was 
for the most part plunged into deep gloom. He occasionally made an 
attempt to smarten himself, and hum the fag-end of a tune; but his 
relapses into profound melancholy were only made the more impressive by 
the mockery of a hat exceedingly on one side, and a shirt-collar pulled up 
to his eyes. 

We went to my aunt's house rather than to mine, because of Dora's not 
being well. My aunt presented herself on being sent for, and welcomed 
Mr. Micawber with gracious cordiality. Mr. Micawber kissed her hand, 
retired to the window, and pulling out his pocket-handkerchief, had a 
mental wrestle with himself. 

Mr. Dick was at home. He was by nature so exceedingly compas- 
sionate of anyone who seemed to be ill at ease, and was so quick to finci 
any such person out, that he shook hands with Mr. Micawber, at least half- 
a-dozen times in live minutes. To Mr. Micawber, in Iris trouble, this 
warmth, on the part of a stranger, was so extremely touching, that he 
could only say, on the occasion of each successive shake, " My dear sir, 
you overpower me ! " Which gratified Mr. Dick so much, that he went 
at it again with greater vigor than before. 

" The friendliness of this gentleman," said Mr. Micawber to my aunt, 
" if you will allow me, ma'am, to cull a figure of speech from the vocabu- 
lary of our coarser national sports — floors me. To a man who is strug- 
gling with a complicated burden of perplexity and disquiet, such a 
reception is trying, I assure you." 

" My friend Mr. Dick," replied my aunt, proudly, " is not a common 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 503 

" That I am convinced of," said Mr. Micawber. "My dear sir ! " for 
Mr. Dick was staking bands with him again; "I am deeply sensible of 
your cordiality ! " 

" How do you find yourself?" said Mr. Dick, with an anxious look. 

" Indifferent, my dear sir," returned Mr. Micawber, sighing. 

" You must keep up your spirits," said Mr. Dick, " and make yourself 
as comfortable as possible." 

Mr. Micawber was quite overcome by these friendly words, and by 
finding Mr. Dick's hand again within his own. " It has been my lot," he 
observed, " to meet, in the diversified panorama of human existence, with 
an occasional oasis, but never with one so green, so gushing, as the 
present ! " 

At another time I should have been amused by this ; but I felt that 
we were all constrained and uneasy, and I watched Mr. Micawber so 
anxiously, in his vacillations between an evident disposition to reveal some- 
thing, and a counter-disposition to reveal nothing, that I was in a perfect 
fever. Traddles, sitting on the edge of his chair, with his eyes wide open, 
and his hair more emphatically erect than ever, stared by turns at the 
ground and at Mr. Micawber, without so much as attempting to put in a 
word. My aunt, though I saw that her shrewdest observation was con- 
centrated on her new guest, had more useful possession of her wits than 
either of us ; for she held him in conversation, and made it necessary for 
him to talk, whether he liked it or not. 

"You are a very old friend of my nephew's, Mr. Micawber," said my 
aunt. "I wish I had had the pleasure of seeing you before." 

"Madam," returned Mr. Micawber, "I wish I had had the honor of 
knowing you at an earlier period. I was not always the wreck you at 
present behold." 

" I hope Mrs. Micawber and your family are well, sir," said my aunt. 

Mr. Micawber inclined his head. " They are as well, ma'am," he despe- 
rately observed after a pause, " as Aliens and Outcasts can ever hope to be." 

"Lord bless you, sir !" exclaimed my aunt, in her abrupt way. " What 
are you talking about ? " 

" The subsistence of my family, ma'am," returned Mr. Micawber, 
" trembles in the balance. My employer " 

Here Mr. Micawber provokingly left off; and began to peel the lemons 
that had been under my directions set before him, together with all the 
other appliances he used in making punch. 

" Your employer, you know," said Mr. Dick, jogging his arm as a gentle 
reminder. 

" My good sir," returned Mr. Micawber, " you recall me. I am 
obliged to you." They shook hands again. " My employer, ma'am — 
Mr. Heep — once did me the favor to observe to me, that if I were not 
in the receipt of the stipendiary emoluments appertaining to my engage- 
ment with him, I should probably be a mountebank about the country 
swallowing a sword-blade, and eating the devouring element. For anything 
that I can perceive to the contrary, it is still probable that my children 
may be reduced to seek a livelihood by personal contortion, while 
Mrs. Micawber abets their unnatural feats, by playing the barrel-organ." 

Mr. Micawber, with a random but expressive flourish of his knife, 



504 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

signified that these performances might be expected to take place after he 
was no more ; then resumed his peeling with a desperate air. 

My aunt leaned her elbow on the little round table that she usually- 
kept beside her, and eyed him attentively. Notwithstanding the aversion 
with which I regarded the idea of entrapping him into any disclosure he 
was not prepared to make voluntarily, I should have taken him up at this 
point, but for the strange proceedings in which I saw him engaged; 
whereof his putting the lemon-peel into the kettle, the sugar into the snuffer- 
tray, the spirit into the empty jug, and confidently attempting to pour 
boiling water out of a candlestick, were among the most remarkable. I 
saw that a crisis was at hand, and it came. He clattered all his means 
and implements together, rose from his chair, pulled out his pocket-hand- 
kerchief, and burst into tears. 

" My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, behind his handkerchief, 
" this is an occupation, of all others, requiring an untroubled mind, and 
self-respect. I cannot perform it. It is out of the question." 

" Mr. Micawber," said I, " what is the matter ? Pray speak out. You 
are among friends." 

"Among friends, sir!" repeated Mr. Micawber; and all he had 
reserved came breaking out of him. " Good heavens, it is principally 
because I am among friends that my state of mind is what it is. What 
is the matter, gentlemen? What is not the matter? Yillany is the 
matter; baseness is the matter; deception, fraud, conspiracy, are the matter; 
and the name of the whole atrocious mass is — Heep ! " 

My aunt clapped her hands, and we all started up as if we were 
possessed. 

" The struggle is over ! " said Mr. Micawber, violently gesticulating 
with his pocket-handkerchief, and fairly striking out from time to time 
with both arms, as if he were swimming under superhuman difficulties. 
" I will lead this life no longer. I am a wretched being, cut off from every- 
thing that makes life tolerable. I have been under a Taboo in that infernal 
scoundrel's service. Give me back my wife, give me back my family, 
substitute Micawber for the petty wretch who walks about in the boots 
at present on my feet, and call upon me to swallow a sword to-morrow, 
and I '11 do it. With an appetite ! " 

I never saw a man so hot in my life. I tried to calm him, that we 
might come to something rational; but he got hotter and hotter, and 
wouldn't hear a word. 

" I '11 put my hand in no man's hand," said Mr. Micawber, gasping, 
puffing, and sobbing, to that degree that he was like a man fighting with 
cold water, "until I have — blown to fragments — the — a — detestable — 
serpent — Heep ! I '11 partake of no one's hospitality, until I have — a — 
moved Mount Vesuvius — to eruption — on — a — the abandoned rascal — 
Heep ! Eefreshment — a — underneath this roof — particularly punch — 
would — a — choak me — unless — I had — previously — choaked the eyes — 
out of the head — a — of — interminable cheat, and liar — Heep ! I — a — I '11 
know nobody — and — a — say nothing — and — a — live nowhere — until I 
have crushed — to — a — undiscoverable atoms — the — transcendent and im- 
mortal hypocrite and perjurer — Heep ! " 

I realiy had some fear of Mr. Micawber's dying on the spot. The 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 505 

manner in which, he struggled through these inarticulate sentences, and, 
whenever he found himself getting near the name of Heep, fought his way 
on to it, dashed at it in a fainting state, and brought it out with a 
vehemence little less than marvellous, was frightful ; but now, when he 
sank into a chair, steaming, and looked at us, with every possible color in 
his face that had no business there, and an endless procession of lumps 
following one another in hot haste up his throat, whence they seemed to 
shoot into his forehead, he had the appearance of being in the last ex- 
tremity. I would have gone to his assistance, but he waived me off, and 
wouldn't hear a word. 

" No, Copperfield ! — No communication — a — until — Miss Wickfield — a 
— redress from wrongs inflicted by consummate scoundrel — -Heep If (I 
am quite convinced he could not have uttered three words, but for the 
amazing energy with which this word inspired him when he felt it coming.) 
" Inviolable secret — a — from the whole world — a — no exceptions — this 
day week — a — at breakfast time — a — everybody present — including aunt 
— a — and extremely friendly gentleman — to be at the hotel at Canterbury 
— a — where — Mrs. Micawber and myself — Auld Lang Syne in chorus — ■ 
and — a — will expose intolerable ruffian — Heep ! No more to say — a 
— or listen to persuasion — go immediately — not capable — a — bear society 
— upon the track of devoted and doomed traitor — Heep ! " 

With this last repetition of the magic word that had kept him going at 
all, and in which he surpassed all his previous efforts, Mr. Micawber rushed 
out of the house ; leaving us in a state of excitement, hope, and wonder, 
that reduced us to a condition little better than his own. But even then 
his passion for writing letters was too strong to be resisted ; for while we 
were yet in the height of our excitement, hope, and wonder, the following- 
pastoral note was brought to me from a neighbouring tavern, at which he 
had called to write it : — 

" Most secret and confidential. 
"My dear Sir, 

" I beg to be allowed to convey, through you, my apologies 
to your excellent aunt for my late excitement. An explosion of a 
smouldering volcano long suppressed, was the result of an internal contest 
more easily conceived than described. 

" I trust I rendered tolerably intelligible my appointment for the morn- 
ing of this day week, at the house of public entertainment at Canterbury, 
where Mrs. Micawber and myself had once the honor of uniting o in- 
voices to yours, in the well-known strain of the Immortal exciseman 
nurtured beyond the Tweed. 

" The duty done, and act of reparation performed, which can .'alone 
enable me to contemplate my fellow mortal, I shall be known no more. 
I shall simply require to be deposited in that place of universal resort, 
where 

" c Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, 

" ' The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,' 

" — With the plain Inscription, 

" Wilkins Micawber." 



506 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 



CHAPTEB L. 

Mil. PEGGOTTY's DREAM COMES TRUE. 

By this time, some months had passed, since our interview on the bank 
of the river with Martha. I had never seen her since, but she had com- 
municated with Mr. Peggotty on several occasions. Nothing had come of 
her zealous intervention ; nor could I infer, from what he told me, that any 
clue had ever been obtained, for a moment, to Emily's fate. I confess 
that I began to despair of her recovery, and gradually to sink deeper and 
deeper into the belief that she was dead. 

His conviction remained unchanged. So far as I know — and I believe 
his honest heart was transparent to me — he never wavered again, in his 
solemn certainty of finding her. His patience never tired. And, although 
I trembled for the agony it might one day be to him to have his strong 
assurance shivered at a blow, there was something so religious in it, so 
affectingly expressive of its anchor being in the purest depths of his fine 
nature, that the respect and honor in which I held him were exalted 
every day. 

His was not a lazy trustfulness that hoped, and did no more. He had 
been a man of sturdy action all his life, and he knew that in all things 
wherein he wanted help he must do his own part faithfully, and help him- 
self. I have known him set out in the night, on a misgiving that the 
light might not be, by some accident, in the window of the old boat, and 
walk to Yarmouth. I have known him, on reading something in the 
newspaper that might apply to her, take up his stick, and go forth on a 
journey of three or four score miles. He made his way by sea to Naples, 
and back, after hearing the narrative to which Miss Dartle had assisted me. 
All his journeys were ruggedly performed ; for he was always steadfast in 
a purpose of saving money for Emily's sake, when she should be found. 
In all this long pursuit, I never heard him repine ; I never heard him say 
he was fatigued, or out of heart. 

Dora had often seen him since our marriage, and was quite fond of 
him. I fancy his figure before me now, standing near her sofa, with his 
rough cap in his hand, and the blue eyes of my child-wife raised, with a 
timid wonder, to his face. Sometimes of an evening, about twilight, 
when he came to talk with me, I would induce him to smoke his pipe 
in the garden, as we slowly paced to and fro together; and then, 
the picture of his deserted home, and the comfortable air it used to have 
in my childish eyes of an evening when the fire was burning, and the wind 
moaning round it, came most vividly into my mind. 

One evening, at this hour, he told me that he had found Martha 
waiting near his lodging on the preceding night when he came out, and 
that she had asked him not to leave London on any account, until he should 
have seen her again. 

" Did she tell you why ? " I inquired. 



OF DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 507 

" I asked her, Mas'r Davy," he replied, "but it is but few words as she 
ever says, and she on'y got my promise and so went away." 

" Did she say when you might expect to see her again ? " I demanded. 

" No, Mas'r Davy," he returned, drawing his hand thoughtfully down 
his face. " I asked that too ; but it was more (she said) than she could 
tell." 

As I had long forborne to encourage him with hopes that hung on 
threads, I made no other comment on this information than that I sup- 
posed he would see her soon. Such speculations as it engendered within 
me I kept to myself, and those were faint enough. 

I was walking alone in the garden, one evening, about a fortnight 
afterwards. I remember that evening well. It was the second in Mr. 
Micawber's week of suspense. There had been rain all day, and there 
was a damp feeling in the air. The leaves were thick upon the trees, and 
heavy with wet ; but the rain had ceased, though the sky was still dark ; 
and the hopeful birds were singing cheerfully. As I walked to and fro in 
the garden, and the twilight began to close around me, their little voices 
were hushed ; and that peculiar silence which belongs to such an evening in 
the country when the lightest trees are quite still, save for the occasional 
droppings from their boughs, prevailed. 

There was a little green perspective of trellis- work and ivy at the side 
of our cottage, through which I could see, from the garden where I was 
walking, into the road before the house. I happened to turn my eyes 
towards this place, as I was thinking of many things ; and I saw a figure 
beyond, dressed in a plain cloak. It was bending eagerly towards me, and 
beckoning. 

" Martha !" said I, going to it. 

" Can you come with me ? " she inquired, in an agitated whisper. " I 
have been to him, and he is not at home. I wrote down where he was to 
come, and left it on his table with my own hand. They said he would 
not be out long. I have tidings for him. Can you come directly ? " 

My answer was, to pass out at the gate immediately. She made a 
hasty gesture with her hand, as if to entreat my patience and my silence, 
and turned towards London, whence, as her dress betokened, she had 
come expeditiously on foot. 

I asked her if that were not our destination ? On her motioning Yes, 
with the same hasty gesture as before, I stopped an empty coach that was 
coming by, and we got into it. When I asked her where the coachman 
was to drive, she answered " Anywhere near Golden Square ! And quick ! " 
— then shrunk into a corner, with one trembling hand before her face, and 
the other making the former gesture, as if she could not bear a voice. 

Now much disturbed, and dazzled with conflicting gleams of hope and 
dread, I looked at her for some explanation. But, seeing how strongly 
she desired to remain quiet, and feeling that it was my own natural incli- 
nation too, at such a time, I did not attempt to break the silence. We 
proceeded without a word being spoken. Sometimes she glanced out of 
the window, as though she thought we were going slowly, though indeed 
we were going fast ; but otherwise remained exactly as at first. 

We alighted at one of the entrances to the Square she had mentioned, 
where I directed the coach to wait, not knowing but that we might have 



508 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

some occasion for it. She laid her hand on my arm, and hurried me on to 
one of the sombre streets, of which there are several in that part, where 
the houses were once fair dwellings in the occupation of single families, 
but have, and had, long degenerated into poor lodgings let off in rooms. 
Entering at the open door of one of these, and releasing my arm, she 
beckoned me to follow her up the common staircase, which was like 
a tributary channel to the street. 

The house swarmed with inmates. As we went up, doors of rooms 
were opened and people's heads put out ; and we passed other people on 
the stairs, who were coming down. In glancing up from the outside, 
before we entered, I had seen women and children lolling at the windows 
over flower-pots ; and we seemed to have attracted their curiosity, for these 
were principally the observers who looked out of their doors. It was a 
broad panelled staircase, with massive balustrades of some dark wood ; 
cornices above the doors, ornamented with carved fruit and flowers ; and 
broad seats in the windows. But all these tokens of past grandeur were 
miserably decayed and dirty; rot, damp, and age, had weakened the 
flooring, which in many places was unsound and even unsafe. Some 
attempts had been made, I noticed, to infuse new blood into this dwindling 
frame, by repairing the costly old wood-work here and there with common 
deal ; but it was like the marriage of a reduced old noble to a plebeian 
pauper, and each party to the ill-assorted union shrunk away from the 
other. Several of the back windows on the staircase had been darkened or 
wholly blocked up. In those that remained, there was scarcely any glass ; 
and, through the crumbling frames by which the bad air seemed always to 
come in, and never to go out, I saw, through other glassless windows, into 
other houses in a similar condition, and looked giddily down into a wretched 
yard which was the common dust-heap of the mansion. 

We proceeded to the top-story of the house. Two or three times, by 
the way, I thought I observed in the indistinct light the skirts of a female 
figure going up before us. As we turned to ascend the last flight of stairs 
between us and the roof, we caught a full view of this figure pausing for 
a moment, at a door. Then it turned the handle and went in. 

"What 's this ! " said Martha, in a whisper. " She has gone into my 
room. I don't know her ! " 

I knew her. I had recognised her with amazement, for Miss Dartle. 

I said something to the effect that it was a lady whom I had seen before, 
in a few words, to my conductress ; and had scarcely done so, when we 
heard her voice in the room, though not, from where we stood, what she 
was saying. Martha, with an astonished look, repeated her former action, 
and softly led me up the stairs ; and then, by a little back door which seemed 
to have no lock, and which she pushed open with a touch, into a small 
empty garret with a low sloping roof: little better than a cupboard. 
Between this, and the room she had called hers, there was a small door of 
communication, standing partly open. Here we stopped, breathless with 
our ascent, and she placed her hand lightly on my lips. I could only see, 
of the room beyond, that it was pretty large ; that there was a bed in it ; 
and that there were some common pictures of ships upon the walls. I 
could not see Miss Dartle, or the person whom we had heard her address. 
Certainly, my companion could not, for my position was the best. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 509 

A dead silence prevailed for some moments. Martha kept one hand on 
my lips, and raised the other in a listening attitude. 

" It matters little to me her not being at home," said Eosa Dartle, 
haughtily, " I know nothing of her. It is you I come to see." 

" Me? " replied a soft voice. 

At the sound of it, a thrill went through my frame. For it was Emily's ! 

" Yes," returned Miss Dartle, " I have come to look at you. What ? 
You are not ashamed of the face that has done so much ?" 

The resolute and unrelenting hatred of her tone, its cold stern sharp- 
ness, and its mastered rage, presented her before me, as if I had seen her 
standing in the light. I saw the flashing black eyes, and the passion- 
wasted figure ; and I saw the scar, with its white track cutting through 
her lips, quivering and throbbing as she spoke. 

" I have come to see," she said, " James Steerforth's fancy ; the girl 
who ran away with him, and is the town-talk of the commonest people of 
her native place ; the bold, flaunting, practised companion of persons like 
James Steerforth. I want to know what such a thing is like." 

There was a rustle, as if the unhappy girl, on whom she heaped these 
taunts, ran towards the door, and the speaker swiftly interposed herself 
before it. It was succeeded by a moment's pause. 

When Miss Dartle spoke again, it was through her set teeth, and with 
a stamp upon the ground. 

" Stay there ! " she said, " or I '11 proclaim you to the house, and the 
whole street ! If you try to evade me, I '11 stop you, if it 's by the hair, 
and raise the very stones against you ! " 

A frightened murmur was the only reply that reached my ears. A 
silence succeeded. I did not know what to do. Much as I desired to 
put an end to the interview, I felt that I had no right to present myself; 
that it was for Mr. Peggotty alone to see her and recover her. Would he 
never come ? I thought impatiently. 

" So ! " said Eosa Dartle, with a contemptuous laugh, " I see her at 
last ! Why, he was a poor creature to be taken by that delicate mock- 
modesty, and that hanging head ! " 

" Oh, for Heaven's sake, spare me!" exclaimed Emily. " Whoever you 
are, you know my pitiable story, and for Heaven's sake spare me, if you 
would be spared yourself!" 

"If 7 would be spared ! " returned the other fiercely ; " what is there 
in common between m, do you think ? " 

" Nothing but our sex," said Emily, with a burst of tears. 

" And that," said Eosa Dartle, "is so strong a claim, preferred by one 
so infamous, that if I had any feeling in my breast but scorn and abhorrence 
of you, it would freeze it up. Our sex ! You are an honour to our sex ! " 

IC I have deserved this," cried Emily, "but it 's dreadful ! Dear, dear 
lady, think what I have suffered, and how I am fallen ! Oh, Martha, come 
back ! Oh, home, home ! " 

Miss Dartle placed herself in a chair, within view of the door, and 
looked downward, as if Emily were crouching on the floor before her. 
Being now between me and the light, I could see her curled lip, and her 
cruel eyes intently fixed on one place, with a greedy triumph. 

" Listen to what I say ! " she said ; " and reserve your false arts for 



510 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

your dupes. Do you hope to move me by your tears ? No more than you 
could charm me by your smiles, you purchased slave." 

" Oh, have some mercy on me ! " cried Emily. " Show me some 
compassion, or I shall die mad ! " 

"It would be no great penance," said Eosa Dartle, "for your crimes. 
Do you know what you have done ? Do you ever think of the home you 
have laid waste ? " 

" Oh, is there ever night or day, when I don't think of it ! " cried Emily; 
and now I could just see her, on her knees, with her head thrown back, 
her pale face looking upward, her hands wildly clasped and held out, and 
her hair streaming about her. " Has there ever been a single minute, 
waking or sleeping, when it hasn't been before me, just as it used to be in 
the lost days when I turned my back upon it for ever and for ever ! Oh, 
home, home ! Oh dear, dear uncle, if you ever could have known the 
agony your love would cause me when I fell away from good, you never 
would have shown it to me so constant, much as you felt it; but would 
have been angry to me, at least once in my life, that I might have had 
some comfort ! I have none, none, no comfort upon earth, for all of them 
were always fond of me !" She dropped on her face, before the imperious 
figure in the chair, with an imploring effort to clasp the skirt of her 
dress. 

Eosa Dartle sat looking down upon her, as inflexible as a figure of 
brass. Her lips were tightly compressed, as if she knew that she must 
keep a strong constraint upon herself — I write what I sincerely believe — 
or she would be tempted to strike the beautiful form with her foot. I 
saw her, distinctly, and the whole power of her face and character seemed 
forced into that expression. — Would he Never come ? 

" The miserable vanity of these earth-worms ! " she said, when she had 
so far controlled the angry heavings of her breast, that she could trust her- 
self to speak. " Your home ! Do you imagine that I bestow a thought 
on it, or suppose you could do any harm to that low place, which money 
would not pay for, and handsomely ? Your home ! You were a part of the 
trade of your home, and were bought and sold like any other vendible 
thing your people dealt in." 

" Oh not that ! " cried Emily. " Say anything of me ; but don't visit 
my disgrace and shame, more than I have done, on folks who are as 
honorable as you ! Have some respect for them, as you are a lady, if you 
have no mercy for me." 

" I speak," she said, not deigning to take any heed of this appeal, 
and drawing away her dress from the contamination of Emily's touch, 
" I speak of Ids home — where I live. Here," she said, stretching out 
her hand with her contemptuous laugh, and looking down upon the 
prostrate girl, " is a worthy cause of division between lady-mother and 
gentleman-son ; of grief in a house where she wouldn't have been admitted 
as a kitchen-girl ; of anger, and repining, and reproach. This piece of 
pollution, picked up from the water-side, to be made much of for an hour, 
and then tossed back to her original place ! " 

"No! no!" cried Emily, clasping her hands together. " When he 
first came into my way — that the day had never dawned upon me, and 
he had met me being carried to my grave ! — I had been brought up as 



OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD . 511 

virtuous as you or any lady, and was going to be the wife of as good a man 
as you or any lady in the world can ever marry. If you live in his home 
and know him, you know, perhaps, what his power with a weak, vain girl 
might be. I don't defend myself, but I know well, and he knows well, or 
he will know when he comes to die, and his mind is troubled with it, that he 
used all his power to deceive me, and that I believed him, trusted him, 
and loved him ! " 

Eosa Dartle sprang up from her seat ; recoiled ; and in recoiling struck 
at her, with a face of such malignity, so darkened and disfigured by passion, 
that I had almost thrown myself between them. The blow, which had no 
aim, fell upon the air. As she now stood panting, looking at her with 
the utmost detestation that she was capable of expressing, and trembling 
from head to foot with rage and scorn, I thought I had never seen such 
a sight, and never could see such another. 

" You love him ? You ? " she cried, with her clenched hand, quivering 
as if it only wanted a weapon to stab the object of her wrath. 

Emily had shrunk out of my view. There was no reply. 

"And tell that to me" she added, "with your shameful lips? Why 
don't they whip these creatures ! If I could order it to be done, I would 
have this girl whipped to death." 

And so she would, I have no doubt. I would not have trusted her 
with the rack itself, while that furious look lasted. 

She slowly, very slowly, broke into a laugh, and pointed at Emily with 
her hand, as if she were a sight of shame for gods and men. 

" She love ! " she said. " That carrion ! And he ever cared for her, 
she 5 d tell me ? Ha, ha ! The liars that these traders are ! " 

Her mockery was worse than her undisguised rage. Of the two, I 
would have much preferred to be the object of the latter. But, when she 
suffered it to break loose, it was only for a moment. She had chained it 
up again, and however it might tear her within, she subdued it to herself. 

" I came here, you pure fountain of love," she said, " to see — as I 
began by telling you— what such a thing as you was like. I was curious. 
I am satisfied. Also to tell you, that you had best seek that home of 
yours, with all speed, and hide your head among those excellent people who 
are expecting you, and whom your money will console. When it 's all 
gone, you can believe, and trust, and love again, you know ! I thought 
you a broken toy that had lasted its time; a worthless spangle that was 
tarnished, and thrown away. But, finding you true gold, a very lady, and 
an ill-used innocent, with a fresh heart full of love and trustfulness — which 
you look like, and is quite consistent with your story ! — I have something- 
more to say. Attend to it ; for what I say I '11 do. Do you hear me, 
you fairy spirit ? What I say, I mean to do ! " 

Her rage got the better of her again, for a moment ; but it passed over 
her face like a spasm, and left her smiling. 

" Hide yourself," she pursued, " if not at home, somewhere. Let it 
be somewhere beyond reach; in some obscure life — or, better still, in 
some obscure death. I wonder, if your loving heart will not break, you 
have found no way of helping it to be still ! I have heard of such means 
sometimes. I believe they may be easily found." 

A low crying, on the part of Emily, interrupted her here. She stopped, 
and listened to it as if it were music. 



512 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

"I am of a strange nature, perhaps," Eosa Dartle went on; "but 
I can't breathe freely in the air you breathe. I find it sickly. Therefore, 
I will have it cleared ; I will have it purified of you. If you live here 
to-morrow, I '11 have your story and your character proclaimed on the 
common stair. There are decent women in the house, I am told ; and it 
is a pity such a light as you should be among them, and concealed. If, 
leaving here, you seek any refuge in this town in any character but your 
true one (which you are welcome to bear, without molestation from me), 
the same service shall be done you, if I hear of your retreat. Being 
assisted by a gentleman who not long ago aspired to the favor of your 
hand, I am sanguine as to that." 

Would he never, never come ? How long was I to bear this ? How 
long could I bear it ? 

" Oh me, oh me !" exclaimed the wretched Emily, in a tone that might 
have touched the hardest heart, I should have thought ; bat there was 
no relenting in Eosa Dartle's smile. " What, what, shall I do ! " 

" Do ? " returned the other. " Live happy in your own reflections ! 
Consecrate your existence to the recollection of James Steerforth's tender- 
ness — he would have made you his serving-man's wife, would he not ? — 
or to feeling grateful to the upright and deserving creature who would have 
taken you as his gift. Or, if those proud remembrances, and the con- 
sciousness of your own virtues, and the honorable position to which they 
have raised you in the eyes of everything that wears the human shape, 
will not sustain you, marry that good man, and be happy in his conde- 
scension. If this will not do either, die ! There are doorways and dust- 
heaps for such deaths, and such despair — find one, and take your flight to 
Heaven !" 

I heard a distant foot upon the stairs. I knew it, I was certain. It 
was his, thank God ! 

She moved slowly from before the door when she said this, and passed 
out of my sight. 

" But mark ! " she added, slowly and sternly, opening the other door to 
go away, " I am resolved, for reasons that I have and hatreds that I 
entertain, to cast you out, unless you withdraw from my reach altogether, 
or drop your pretty mask. This is what I had to say ; and what I say, 
I mean to do ! " 

The foot upon the stairs came nearer — nearer — passed her as she went 
down — rushed into the room ! 

"Uncle!" 

A fearful cry followed the word. I paused a moment, and looking in, 
saw him supporting her insensible figure in his arms. He gazed for a 
few seconds in the face; then stooped to kiss it — oh, how tenderly! — 
and drew a handkerchief before it. 

" Mas'r Davy," he said, in a low tremulous voice, when it was covered, 
"I thank my Heav'nly Father as my dream 's come true ! I thank Him 
hearty for having guided of me, in His own ways, to my darling ! " 

With those words he took her up in his arms ; and, with the veiled face 
lying on his bosom, and addressed towards his own, carried her, motionless 
and unconscious, down the stairs. 



i 










OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 513 



CHAPTER LI. 

THE BEGINNING OF A LONGER JOURNEY. 

It was yet early in the morning of the following day, when, as I was 
walking in ray garden with my aunt (who took little other exercise 
now, being so much in attendance on my dear Dora), I was told that 
Mr. Peggotty desired to speak with me. He came into the garden to 
meet me half-way, on my going towards the gate ; and bared his head, as 
it was always his custom to do when he saw my aunt, for whom he had a 
high respect. I had been telling her all that had happened over-night. 
Without saying a word, she walked up with a cordial face, shook hands 
with him, and patted him on the arm. It was so expressively done, that 
she had no need to say a word. Mr. Peggotty understood her quite as 
well as if she had said a thousand. 

" I '11 go in now, Trot," said my aunt, " and look after little Blossom, 
who will be getting up presently." 

" Not along of my being heer, ma'am, I hope ? " said Mr. Peggotty. 
" Unless my wits is gone a band's neezing " — by which Mr. Peggotty 
meant to say, bird's-nesting — " this morning, 'tis along of me as you 're 
a going to quit us ? " 

" You have something to say, my good friend," returned my aunt, 
" and will do better without me." 

" By your leave, ma'am," returned Mr. Peggotty, " I should take it 
kind, pervising you doen't mind my clicketten, if you'd bide heer." 

" Would you? " said my aunt, with short good-nature. " Then I am 
sure I will ! " 

So, she drew her arm through Mr. Peggotty's, and walked with him to 
a leafy little summer-house there was at the bottom of the garden, where 
she sat down on a bench, and I beside her. There was a seat for 
Mr. Peggotty too, but he preferred to stand, leaning his hand on the 
small rustic table. As he stood, looking at his cap for a little while before 
beginning to speak, I could not help observing what power and force 
of character his sinewy hand expressed, and what a good and trusty 
companion it was to his honest brow and iron-grey hair. 

" I took my dear child away last night," Mr. Peggotty began, as he 
raised his eyes to ours, " to my lodging, wheer I have a long time been 
expecting of her and preparing fur her. It was hours afore she knowed 
me right ; and when she did, she kneeled down at my feet, and Mender 
said to me, as if it was her prayers, how it all come to be. You may 
believe me, when I heerd her voice, as I had heerd at home so playful — 
and see her humbled, as it might be in the dust our Saviour wrote in 
with his blessed hand — I felt a wownd go to my 'art, in the midst of all 
its thankfulness." 

He drew his sleeve across his face, without any pretence of concealing 
why ; and then cleared his voice. 

" It warn't for long as I felt that ; for she was found. I had on'y to 



1 

L L 



514 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

think as she was found, and it was gone. I doen't know why I do so 
much as mention of it now, I 'm sure. I didn't have it in my mind a 
minute ago, to say a word about myself; but it come up so nat'ral, that I 
yielded to it afore I was aweer." 

" You are a self-denying soul," said my aunt, " and will have your 
reward." 

Mr. Peggotty, with the shadows of the leaves playing athwart his 
face, made a surprised inclination of the head towards my aunt, as an 
acknowledgment of her good opinion ; then, took up the thread he had 
relinquished. 

" When my Em'ly took flight," he said, in stern wrath for the moment, 
" from the house wheer she was made a pris'ner by that theer spotted 
snake as Mas'r Davy see, — and his story 's trew, and may God confound 
him ! — she took flight in the night. It was a dark night, with a many 
stars a shining. She was wild. She ran along the sea beach, believing 
the old boat was theer ; and calling out to us to turn away our faces, for 
she was a coming by. She heerd herself a crying out, like as if it was 
another person ; and cut herself on them sharp-pinted stones and rocks, 
and felt it no more than if she had been rock herself. Ever so fur she 
run, and there was fire afore her eyes, and roarings in her ears. Of a 
sudden — or so she thowt, you unnerstand — the day broke, wet and windy, 
and she was lying b'low a heap of stone upon the shore, and a woman 
was a speaking to her, saying, in the language of that country, what was 
it as had gone so much amiss ? " 

He saw everything he related. It passed before him, as he spoke, so 
vividly, that, in the intensity of his earnestness, he presented what he 
described, to me, with greater distinctness than I can express. I can 
hardly believe, writing now long afterwards, but that I was actually 
present in these scenes; they are impressed upon me with such an 
astonishing air of fidelity. 

" As Em'ly's eyes — which was heavy — see this woman better," Mi*. 
Peggotty went on, " she know'd as she was one of them as she had often 
talked to on the beach. Eur, though she had run (as I have said) ever so 
fur in the night, she had oftentimes wandered long ways, partly afoot, 
partly in boats and carriages, and know'd all that country, 'long the 
coast, miles and miles. She hadn't no children of her own, this 
woman, being a young wife ; but she was a looking to have one afore 
long. And may my prayers go up to Heaven that 'twill be a happ'ness to 
her, and a comfort, and a honor, all her life ! May it love her and be 
dootiful to her, in her old age ; helpful of her at the last ; a Angel to her 
heer, and heerafter ! " 

" Amen ! " said my aunt. 

" She had been summat timorous and down," said Mr. Peggotty, "and 
had sat, at first, a little way off, at her spinning, or such work as it was, 
when Em'ly talked to the children. But Em'ly had took notice of her, and 
had gone and spoke to her; andas the young woman was partial to thechildren 
herself, they had soon made friends. Sermuchser, that when Em'ly went 
that way, she always giv Em'ly flowers. This was her as now asked 
what it was that had gone so much amiss. Em'ly told her, and she — took 
her home. She did indeed. She took her home," said Mr. Peggotty, 
covering his face. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 515 

He was more affected by this act of kindness, than I had ever seen 
him affected by anything since the night she went away. My aunt and I 
did not attempt to disturb him. 

"It was a little cottage, you may suppose," he said, presently, "but 
she found space for Em'ly in it, — her husband was away at sea, — and she 
kep it secret, and prevailed upon such neighbours as she had (they was not 
many near) to keep it secret too. Em'ly was took bad with fever, and, 
what is very strange to me is, — maybe 'tis not so strange to scholars, 
— the language of that country went out of her head, and she could only 
speak her own, that no one unnerstood. She recollects, as if she had 
dreamed it, that she lay there, always a talking her own tongue, always 
believing as the old boat was round the next pint in the bay, and begging 
and imploring of 'em to send theer and tell how she was dying, and bring 
back a message of forgiveness, if it was on'y a wured. A'most the 
whole time, she thowt, — now, that him as I made mention on just now was 
lurking for her unnerneath the winder : now that him as had brought 
her to this was in the room, — and cried to the good young woman not to 
give her up, and know'd, at the same time, that she couldn't unnerstand, 
and dreaded that she must be took away. Likewise the fire was afore 
her eyes, and the roarings in her ears ; and there was no to-day, nor 
yesterday, nor yet to-morrow; but everything in her life as ever had been, 
or as ever could be, and everything as never had been, and as never could be, 
was a crowding on her all at once, and nothing clear nor welcome, and 
yet she sang and laughed about it ! How long this lasted, I doen't know ; 
but then there come a sleep ; and in that sleep, from being a many times 
stronger than her own self, she fell into the weakness of the littlest child." 

Here he stopped, as if for relief from the terrors of his own description. 
After being silent for a few moments, he pursued his story. 

" It was a pleasant arternoon when she awoke ; and so quiet, that 
there warn't a sound but the rippling of that blue sea without a tide, upon 
the shore. It was her belief, at first, that she was at home upon a Sun- 
day morning ; but, the vine leaves as she see at the winder, and the hills 
beyond, warn't home, and contradicted of her. Then, come in her friend 
to watch alongside of her bed ; and then she know'd as the old boat 
warn't round that next pint in the bay no more, but was fur off; and know'd 
where she was, and why ; and broke out a crying on that good young- 
woman's bosom, wheer I hope her baby is a lying now, a cheering of her 
with its pretty eyes ! " 

He could not speak of this good friend of Emily's without a flow of 
tears. It was in vain to try. He broke down again, endeavouring to 
bless her ! 

" That done my Em'ly good," he resumed, after such emotion as I 
could not behold without sharing in ; and as to my aunt, she wept with 
all her heart ; " that done Em'ly good, and she begun to mend. But, the 
language of that country was quite gone from her, and she was forced to 
make signs. So she went on, getting better from day to day, slow, but 
sure, and trying to learn the names of common things — names as she seemed 
never to have heerd in all her life — till one evening come, when she was 
a setting at her window, looking at a little girl at play upon the beach. 
And of a sudden this child held out her hand, and said, what would be in 
English, ' Fisherman's daughter, here 's a shell ! ' — for you are to unner- 

l l 2 



516 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

stand that they used at first to call her ' Pretty lady,' as the general way 
in that country is, and that she had taught 'em to call her 'Fisher- 
man's daughter' instead. The child says of a sudden, 'Fisherman's 
daughter, here 's a shell ! ' Then Em'ly unnerstands her ; and she answers, 
bursting out a crying ; and it all comes back ! 

" When Em'ly got strong again," said Mr. Peggotty, after another short 
interval of silence, " she cast about to leave that good young creetur, and 
get to her own country. The husband was come home, then ; and the 
two together put her aboard a small trader bound to Leghorn, and from that 
to Prance. She had a little money, but it was less than little as they 
would take for all they done. I 'm a'most glad on it, though they was so 
poor ! What they done, is laid up wheer neither moth nor rust doth 
corrupt, and wheer thieves do not break through nor steal. Mas'r Davy, 
it '11 outlast all the treasure in the wureld. 

" Em'ly got to Prance, and took service to wait on travelling ladies at 
a inn in the port. Theer, theer come, one day, that snake. — Let him never 
come nigh me. I doen't know what hurt I might do him ! — Soon as she 
see him, without him seeing her, all her fear and wildness returned upon 
her, and she fled afore the very breath he draw'd. She come to England, 
and was set ashore at Dover. 

" I doen't know," said Mr. Peggotty, " for sure, when her 'art begun 
to fail her ; but all the way to England she had thowt to come to her dear 
home. Soon as she got to England she turned her face tow'rds it. But, 
fear of not being forgiv, fear of being pinted at, fear of some of us being 
dead along of her, fear of many things, turned her from it, kiender by 
force, upon the road : ' Uncle, uncle,' she says to me, ' the fear of not 
being worthy to do, what my torn and bleeding breast so longed to do, was 
the most fright'ning fear of all ! I turned back, when my 'art was full of 
prayers that I might crawl to the old doorstep, in the night, kiss it, lay my 
wicked face upon it, and theer be found dead in the morning.' 

" She come," said Mr. Peggotty, dropping his voice to an awe-stricken 
whisper, " to London. She — as had never seen it in her life — alone — 
without a penny — young — so pretty — come to London. A'most the 
moment as she lighted heer, all so desolate, she found (as she believed) a 
friend ; a decent woman as spoke to her about the needle-work as she had 
been brought up to do, about finding plenty of it fur her, about a lodging for 
the night, and making secret inquiration concerning of me and all at home, 
to-morrow. W r hen my child," he said aloud, and with an energy of 
gratitude that shook him from head to foot, " stood upon the brink 
of more than I can say or think on — Martha, trew to her promise, 
saved her ! " 

I could not repress a cry of joy. 

" Mas'r Davy ! " he said, griping my hand in that strong hand of his, 
" it was you as first made mention of her to me. I thankee, sir ! She 
was arnest. She had know'd of her bitter knowledge wheer to watch 
and what to do. She had done it. And the Lord was above all ! She 
come, white and hurried, upon Em'ly in her sleep. She says to her, 
' Eise up from worse than death, and come with me ! ' Them belonging 
to the house would have stopped her, but they might as soon have stopped 
the sea. ' Stand away from me,' she says, 'lama ghost that calls her 
from beside her open grave ! ' She told Em'ly she had seen me, and know'd 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 517 

I loved her, and forgiv her. She wrapped her, hasty, in her clothes. She 
took her, faint and trembling, on her arm. She heeded no more what they 
said, than if she had had no ears. She walked among 'em with my child, 
minding only her ; and brought her safe out, in the dead of the night, 
from that black pit of ruin ! 

" She attended on Em'ly," said Mr. Peggotty, who had released my hand, 
and put his own hand on his heaving chest ; " she attended to my Em'ly, 
lying wearied out, and wandering betwixt whiles, till late next day. Then 
she went in search of me ; then in search of you, Mas'r Davy. She didn't 
tell Em'ly what she come out fur, lest her 'art should fail, and she should 
think of hiding of herself. How the cruel lady know'd of her being theer, 
I can't say. Whether him as I have spoke so much of, chanced to see 'em 
going theer, or whether (which is most like, to my thinking) he had heerd 
it from the woman, I doen't greatly ask myself. My niece is found. 

"All night long," said Mr. Peggotty, "we have been together, Em'ly 
and me. 'Tis little (considering the time) as she has said, in wureds, 
through them broken-hearted tears ; 'tis less as I have seen of her dear 
face, as grow'd into a woman's at my hearth. But, all night long, her 
arms has been about my neck ; and her head has laid heer ; and we knows 
full well, as we can put our trust in one another, ever more." 

He ceased to speak, and his hand upon the table rested there in perfect 
repose, with a resolution in it that might have conquered lions. 

" It was a gleam of light upon me, Trot," said my aunt, drying her 
eyes, " when I formed the resolution of being godmother to your sister 
Betsey Trotwood, who disappointed me ; but, next to that, hardly anything 
would have given me greater pleasure, than to be godmother to that good 
young creature's baby !" 

Mr. Peggotty nodded his understanding of my aunt's feelings, but could 
not trust himself with any verbal reference to the subject of her commen- 
dation. We all remained silent, and occupied with our own reflections 
(my aunt drying her eyes, and now sobbing convulsively, and now laugh- 
ing and calling herself a fool) ; until I spoke. 

" You have quite made up your mind," said I to Mr. Peggotty, " as to 
the future, good friend ? I need scarcely ask you." 

" Quite, Mas'r Davy," he returned ; " and told Em'ly, Theer 's mighty 
countries, fur from heer. Our future life lays over the sea." 

" They will emigrate together, aunt," said I. 

" Yes ! " said Mr. Peggotty, with a hopeful smile. " No one can't 
reproach my darling in Australia. We will begin a new life over theer!" 

I asked him if he yet proposed to himself any time for going away. 

" I was down at the Docks early this morning, sir," he returned, " to 
get information concerning of them ships. In about six weeks or two 
months from now, there '11 be one sailing — I see her this morning — went 
aboard — and we shall take our passage in her." 

"Quite alone?" I asked. 

" Aye, Mas'r Davy ! " he returned. " My sister, you see, she 's that fond 
of you and yourn, and that accustomed to think on'y of her own country, 
that it wouldn't be hardly fair to let her go. Besides which, theer's one 
she has in charge, Mas'r Daw, as doen't ought to be forgot." 

"Poor Ham!" said I. 

"My good sister takes care of his house, you see, ma'am, and he takes 



518 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

kindly to her," Mr. Peggotty explained for my aunt's better information. 
" He '11 set and talk to her, with a calm spirit, wen it 's like he couldn't 
bring himself to open his lips to another. Poor fellow ! " said Mr. Peg- 
gotty, shaking his head, " theer 's not so much left him, that he could spare 
the little as he has ! " 

"And Mrs. Gummidge? " said I. 

" Well, I 've had a mort of con-sideration, I do tell you," returned Mr. 
Peggotty, with a perplexed look which gradually cleared as he went on, 
" concerning of Missis Gummidge. You see, wen Missis Gummidge 
falls a thinking of the old 'un, she an't what you may call good company. 
Betwixt you and me, Mas'r Davy — and you, ma'am — wen Mrs. Gummidge 
takes to wimicking," — our old county word for crying, — " she 's liable to be 
considered to be, by them as didn't know the old 'un, peevish-like. Now 
I did know the old 'un," said Mr. Peggotty, " and I know'd his merits, 
so I unnerstan her ; but 'tan't entirely so, you see, with others — nat'rally 
can't be ! " 

My aunt and I both acquiesced. 

" Wheerby," said Mr. Peggotty, " my sister might — I doen't say she 
would, but might — find Missis Gummidge give her a leetle trouble now- 
and-again. Theerfur 'tan't my intentions to moor Missis Gummidge 
'long with them, but to find a Beein' fur her wheer she can fisherate fur 
herself." (A Beein' signifies, in that dialect, a home, and to fisherate is to 
provide.) " Pur which purpose," said Mr. Peggotty, " I means to make 
her a 'lowance afore I go, as '11 leave her pretty comfort'ble. She 's the 
faithfullest of creeturs. 'Tan't to be expected, of course, at her time of 
life, and being lone and lorn, as the good old Mawther is to be knocked 
about aboardship, and in the woods and wilds of a new and fur-away 
country. So that 's what I 'm a going to do with her" 

He forgot nobody. He thought of everybody's claims and strivings, but 
his own. 

"Em'ly,"he continued, "will keep along with me — poor child, she's 
sore in need of peace and rest ! — until such time as we goes upon our 
voyage. She'll work at them clothes, as must be made; and I hope 
her troubles will begin to seem longer ago than they was, wen she finds 
herself once more by her rough but loving uncle." 

My aunt nodded confirmation of this hope, and imparted great satis- 
faction to Mr. Peggotty. 

" Theer 's one thing furder, Mas'r Davy," said he, putting his hand in 
his breast-pocket, and gravely taking out the little paper bundle I had 
seen before, which he unrolled on the table. " Theer 's these here bank- 
notes — fifty pound, and ten. To them I wish to add the money as she 
come away with. I 've asked her about that (but not saying why), and 
have added of it up. I an't a scholar. Would you be so kind as see 
how 'tis?" 

He handed me, apologetically for his scholarship, a piece of paper, and 
observed me while I looked it over. It was quite right. 

" Thankee, sir," he said, taking it back. " This money, if you doen't 
see objections, Mas'r Davy, I shall put up jest afore I go, in a cover 
d'rected to him ; and put that up in another, d'rected to his mother. I 
shall tell her, in no more wureds than I speak to you, what it 's the price 
on ; and that I 'm gone, and past receiving of it back." 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 519 

I told him that I thought it would be right to do so — that I was 
thoroughly convinced it would be, since he felt it to be right. 

" I said that theer was on'y one thing furder," he proceeded with a 
grave smile, when he had made up his little bundle again, and put it in 
his pocket ; " but theer was two. I warn't sure in my mind, wen I come 
out this morning, as I could go and break to Ham, of my own self, what 
had so thankfully happened. So I writ a letter while I was out, and put 
it in the post-office, telling of 'em how all was as 'tis ; and that I should 
come down to-morrow to unload my mind of what little needs a doing of 
down theer, and, most-like, take my farewell leave of Yarmouth." 

"And do you wish me to go with you?" said I, seeing that he left 
something unsaid. 

" If you could do me that kind favor, Mas'r Davy," he replied, " I 
know the sight on you would cheer 'em up a bit." 

My little Dora being in good spirits, and very desirous that I should 
go — as I found on talking it over with her — I readily pledged myself to 
accompany him in accordance with his wish. Next morning, consequently, 
we were on the Yarmouth coach, and again travelling over the old ground. 

As we passed along the familiar street at night — Mr. Peggotty, in 
despite of all my remonstrances, carrying my bag — I glanced into Omer 
and Joram's shop, and saw my old friend Mr. Omer there, smoking his 
pipe. I felt reluctant to be present, when Mr. Peggotty first met his 
sister and Ham ; and made Mr. Omer my excuse for lingering behind. 

" How is Mr. Omer, after this long time ? " said I, going in. 

He fanned away the smoke of his pipe, that he might get a better view 
of me, and soon recognised me with great delight. 

" I should get up, sir, to acknowledge such an honor as this visit," 
said he, " only my limbs are rather out of sorts, and I am wheeled about. 
With the exception of my limbs and my breath, hows'ever, I am as hearty 
as a man can be, I 'm thankful to say." 

I congratulated him on his contented looks and his good spirits, and 
saw, now, that his easy chair went on wheels. 

" It's an ingenious thing, ain't it? " he inquired, following the direc- 
tion of my glance, and polishing the elbow with his arm. " It runs as 
light as a feather, and tracks as true as a mail-coach. Bless you, my 
little Minnie — my grand-daughter you know, Minnie's child — puts her 
little strength against the back, gives it a shove, and away we go, as clever 
and merry as ever you see anything ! And I tell you what — it 's a most 
uncommon chair to smoke a pipe in." 

I never saw such a good old fellow to make the best of a thing, and 
find out the enjoyment of it, as Mr. Omer. He was as radiant, as if his 
chair, his asthma, and the failure of his limbs, were the various branches 
of a great invention for enhancing the luxury of a pipe. 

w I see more of the world, I can assure you," said Mr. Omer, " in this 
chair, than ever I see out of it. You'd be surprised at the number of 
people that looks in of a day to have a chat. You really would ! There 's 
twice as much in the newspaper, since I 've taken to this chair, as there 
used to be. As to general reading, dear me, what a lot of it I do 
get through ! That 's what I feel so strong, you know ! If it had 
been my eyes, what should I have done ? If it had been my ears, what 
should I have done ? Being my limbs, what does it signify ? Why, my 



520 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

limbs only made my breath shorter when I used 'em. And now, if I 
want to go out into the street or down to the sands, I 've only got to call 
Dick, Joram's youngest 'prentice, and away I go in my own carriage, like 
the Lord Mayor of London." 

He half suffocated himself with laughing here. 

" Lord bless you ! " said Mr. Omer, resuming his pipe, " a man must 
take the fat with the lean ; that 's what he must make up his mind to, in 
this life. Joram does a fine business. Ex-cellent business ! " 

"lam very glad to hear it," said I. 

" I knew you would be," said Mr. Omer. " And Joram and Minnie are 
like Valentines. What more can a man expect ? What 's his limbs to 
that!" 

His supreme contempt for his own limbs, as he sat smoking, was one 
of the pleasantest oddities I have ever encountered. 

"And since I've took to general reading, you've took to general writ- 
ing, eh, sir? " said Mr. Omer, surveying me admiringly. "What a lovely 
work that was of yours ! What expressions in it ! I read it every word 
— every word. And as to feeling sleepy ! Not at all ! " 

I laughingly expressed my satisfaction, but I must confess that I thought 
this association of ideas significant. 

" I give you my word and honor, sir," said Mr. Omer, " that when I 
lay that book upon the table, and look at it outside ; compact in three 
separate and indiwidual wollumes — one, two, three ; I am as proud as 
Punch to think that I once had the honor of being connected with your 
family. And dear me, it's a long time ago, now, an't it ? Over at Blun- 
derstone. With a pretty little party laid along with the other party. And 
you quite a small party then, yourself. Dear, dear ! " 

I changed the subject by referring to Emily. After assuring him that 
I did not forget how interested he had always been in her, and how 
kindly he had always treated her, I gave him a general account of her 
restoration to her uncle by the aid of Martha ; which I knew would please 
the old man. He listened with the utmost attention, and said, feelingly, 
when I had done : 

" I am rejoiced at it, sir ! It 's the best news I have heard for many 
a day. Dear, dear, dear ! And what 's going to be undertook for that 
unfortunate young woman, Martha, now ? " 

" You touch a point that my thoughts have been dwelling on since 
yesterday," said I, " but on which I can give you no information yet, 
Mr. Omer. Mr. Peggotty has not alluded to it, and I have a delicacy in 
doing so. I am sure he has not forgotten it. He forgets nothing that is 
disinterested and good." 

" Because you know," said Mr. Omer, taking himself up, where he had 
left off, " whatever is done, I should wish to be a member of. Put me down 
for anything you may consider right, and let me know. I never could 
think the girl all bad, and I am glad to find she 's not. So will my 
daughter Minnie be. Young women are contradictory creatures in some 
things — her mother was just the same as her — but their hearts are soft 
and kind. It 's all show with Minnie, about Martha. Why she should 
consider it necessary to make any show, I don't undertake to tell you. 
But it 's all show, bless you. She 'd do her any kindness in private. So, 
put me down for whatever you may consider right, will you be so good ? 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 521 

and drop me a line where to forward it. Dear me ! " said Mr. Omer, 
" when a man is drawing on to a time of life, where the two ends of life 
meet ; when he finds himself, however hearty he is, being: wheeled about for 
the second time, in a speeches of go-cart ; he should be over-rejoiced to 
do a kindness if he can. He wants plenty. And I don't speak of myself, 
particular," said Mr. Omer, " because, sir, the way I look at it is, that 
we are all drawing on to the bottom of the hill, whatever age we are, on 
account of time never standing still for a single moment. So let us always 
do a kindness, and be over-rejoiced. To be sure ! " 

He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and put it on a ledge in the back 
of his chair, expressly made for its reception. 

" There 's Em'ly's cousin, him that she was to have been married to," 
said Mr. Omer, rubbing his hands feebly, " as fine a fellow as there is in 
Yarmouth ! He '11 come and talk or read to me, in the evening, for an 
hour together sometimes. That 's a kindness, I should call it ! All his 
life 's a kindness." 

"I am going to see him now," said I. 

" Are you ? " said Mr. Omer. " Tell him I was hearty, and sent my 
respects. Minnie and Joram 's at a ball. They would be as proud to 
see you as I am, if they was at home. Minnie won't hardly go out at 
all, you see, f on account of father,' as she says. So I swore to-night, that 
if she didn't go, I 'd go to bed at six. In consequence of which," Mr. 
Omer shook himself and his chair, with laughter at the success of his device, 
" she and Joram 's at a ball." 

I shook hands with him, and wished him good night. 

"Half a minute, sir," said Mr. Omer. "If you was to go without 
seeing my little elephant, you 'd lose the best of sights. You never see 
such a sight ! Minnie ! " 

A musical little voice answered, from somewhere upstairs, " I am coming, 
grandfather ! " and a pretty little girl with long, flaxen, curling hair, soon 
came running into the shop. 

" This is my little elephant, sir," said Mr. Omer, fondling the child. 
" Siamese breed, sir. Now, little elephant ! " 

The little elephant set the door of the parlor open, enabling me to see 
that, in these latter days, it was converted into a bedroom for Mr. Omer, 
who could not be easily conveyed upstairs; and then hid her pretty 
forehead, and tumbled her long hair, against the back of Mr. Omer's 
chair. 

" The elephant butts, you know, sir," said Mr. Omer, winking, " when 
he goes at a object. Once, elephant. Twice. Three times ! " 

At this signal, the little elephant, with a dexterity that was next to mar- 
vellous in so small an animal, whisked the chair round with Mr. Omer in it, 
and rattled it off, pell-mell, into the parlor, without touching the doorpost : 
Mr'. Omer indescribably enjoying the performance, and looking back at 
me on the road as if it were the triumphant issue of his life's exertions. 

After a stroll about the town, I went to Ham's house. Peggotty had 
now removed here for good ; and had let her own house to the successor 
of Mr. Barkis in the carrying business, who had paid her very well for 
the good-will, cart, and horse. I believe the very same slow horse that 
Mr. Barkis drove, was still at work. 

I found them in the neat kitchen, accompanied by Mrs. Gummidge, who 



522 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

had been fetched from the old boat by Mr. Peggotty himself. I doubt if 
she could have been induced to desert her post, by any one else. He had 
evidently told them all. Both Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge had their 
aprons to their eyes, and Ham had just stepped out " to take a turn on 
the beach." He presently came home, very glad to see me; and I hope 
they were all the better for my being there. We spoke, with some 
approach to cheerfulness, of Mr. Peggotty's growing rich in a new 
country, and of the wonders he would describe in his letters. We said 
nothing of Emily by name, but distantly referred to her more than once. 
Ham was the serenest of the party. 

But, Peggotty told me, when she lighted me to a little chamber where 
the Crocodile book was lying ready for me on the table, that he always was 
the same. She believed (she told me, crying) that he was broken-hearted ; 
though he was as full of courage as of sweetness, and worked harder and 
better than any boat -builder in any yard in all that part. There were 
times, she said, of an evening, when he talked of their old life in the boat- 
house ; and then he mentioned Emily as a child. But, he never mentioned 
her as a woman. 

I thought I had read in his face that he would like to speak to me 
alone. I therefore resolved to put myself in his way next evening, as he 
came home from his work. Having settled this with myself, I fell asleep. 
That night, for the first time in all those many nights, the candle was 
taken out of the window, Mr. Peggotty swung in his old hammock in the 
old boat, and the wind murmured with the old sound round his head. 

All next day, he was occupied in disposing of his fishing-boat and 
tackle ; in packing up, and sending to London by waggon, such of his 
little domestic possessions as he thought would be useful to him ; and in 
parting with the rest, or bestowing them on Mrs. Gummidge. She was 
with him all day. As I had a sorrowful wish to see the old place once 
more, before it was locked up, I engaged to meet them there in the 
evening. But I so arranged it, as that I should meet Ham first. 

It was easy to come in his way, as I knew where he worked. I met 
him at a retired part of the sands, which I knew he would cross, and 
turned back with him, that he might have leisure to speak to me if he 
really wished. I had not mistaken the expression of his face. We had 
walked but a little way together, when he said, without looking at me : 

" Mas'r Davy, have you seen her ? " 

" Only for a moment, when she was in a swoon," I softly answered. 

We walked a little farther, and he said : 

" Mas'r Davy, shall you see her, d' ye think? " 

" It would be too painful to her, perhaps," said I. 

"I have thowt of that," he replied. " So 'twould, sir, so 'twould." 

" But, Ham," said I, gently, " if there is anything that I could write 
to her, for you, in case I could not tell it ; if there is anything you would 
wish to make known to her through me ; I should consider it a sacred trust." 

" I am sure on 't. I thankee, sir, most kind ! I think theer is some- 
thing I could wish said or wrote." 

" What is it ? " 

We walked a little farther in silence, and then he spoke. 

" 'Tan't that I forgive her. 'Tan't that so much. 'Tis more as I beg 
of her to forgive me, for having pressed my affections upon her. Odd 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 523 

times, I think that if I hadn't had her promise fur to marry me, sir, she 
was that trustful of me, in a friendly way, that she 'd have told me what 
was struggling in her mind, and would have counselled with me, and I 
might have saved her." 

I pressed his hand. " Is that all ? " 

" Theer 's yet a something else," he returned, " if I can say it, Mas'r 
Davy." 

We walked on, farther than we had walked yet, before he spoke again. 
He was not crying when he made the pauses I shall express by lines. He 
was merely collecting himself to speak very plainly. 

" I loved her — and I love the mem'ry of her — too deep — to be able to 
lead her to believe of my own self as I 'm a happy man. I could only be 
happy — by forgetting of her — and I 'm afeerd I couldn't hardly bear as 
she should be told I done that. But if you, being so full of learning, 
Mas'r Davy, could think of anything to say as might bring her to be- 
lieve I wasn't greatly hurt : still loving of her, and mourning for her : 
anything as might bring her to believe as I was not tired of my life, and 
yet was hoping fur to see her without blame, wheer the wicked cease from 
troubling and the weary are at rest — anything as would ease her sorrowful 
mind, and yet not make her think as I could ever marry, or as 'twas 
possible that any one could ever be to me what she was — I should ask of 
you to say that — with my prayers for her — that was so dear." 

I pressed his manly hand again, and told him I would charge myself to 
do this as well as I could. 

" I thankee, sir," he answered. " 'Twas kind of you to meet me. 
'Twas kind of you to bear him company down. Mas'r Davy, I unnerstan' 
very well, though my aunt will come to Lon'on afore they sail, and they '11 
unite once more, that I am not like to see him agen. I fare to feel sure 
on't. We doen't say so, but so 'twill be, and better so. The last you 
see on him — the very last — will you give him the lovingest duty and 
thanks of the orphan, as he was ever more than a father to ? " 

This I also promised, faithfully. 

" I thankee again, sir," he said, heartily shaking hands. " I know 
wheer you 're a going. Good bye ! " 

With a slight wave of his hand, as though to explain to me that he 
could not enter the old place, he turned away. As I looked after his 
figure, crossing the waste in the moonlight, I saw him turn his face 
towards a strip of silvery light upon the sea, and pass on, looking at it, 
until he was a shadow in the distance. 

The door of the boat-house stood open when I approached ; and, on 
entering, I found it emptied of all its furniture, saving one of the old 
lockers, on which Mrs. Gummidge, with a basket on her knee, was seated, 
looking at Mr. Peggotty. He leaned his elbow on the rough chimney-piece, 
and gazed upon a few expiring embers in the grate ; but he raised his 
head, hopefully, on my coming in, and spoke in a cheery manner. 

" Come, according to promise, to bid farewell to 't, eh, Mas'r Davy ! " 
he said, taking up the candle. " Bare enough now, an't it ? " 

" Indeed you have made good use of the time," said I. 

" Why we have not been idle, sir. Missis Gummidge has worked like 
a — I doen't know what Missis Gummidge ain't worked like," said Mr. 
Peggotty, looking at her, at a loss for a sufficiently -approving simile. 



524 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Mrs. Gummidge, leaning on her basket, made no observation. 

" Theer 's the very locker that you used to sit on, 'long with Em'ly ! " 
said Mr. Peggotty, in a whisper. " I 'm a going to carry it away with 
me, last of all. And heer 's your old little bedroom, see, Mas'r Davy ! 
A'most as bleak to-night, as 'art could wish ! " 

In truth, the wind, though it was low, had a solemn sound, and crept 
around the deserted house with a whispered wailing that was very mourn- 
ful. Everything was gone, down to the little mirror with the oyster-shell 
frame. I thought of myself, lying here, when that first great change was 
being wrought at home. I thought of the blue-eyed child who had 
enchanted me. I thought of Steerforth : and a foolish, fearful fancy came 
upon me of his being near at hand, and liable to be met at any turn. 

" 'Tis like to be long," said Mr. Peggotty, in a low voice, " afore the 
boat finds new tenants. They look upon 't, down heer, as being unfort'- 
nate now ! " 

" Does it belong to anybody in the neighbourhood ? " I asked. 

" To a mast-maker up town," said Mr. Peggotty. " I 'm a going to 
give the key to him to-night." 

We looked into the other little room, and came back to Mrs. Gummidge, 
sitting on the locker, whom Mr. Peggotty, putting the light on the 
chimney-piece, requested to rise, that he might carry it outside the door 
before extinguishing the candle. 

" Dan'l," said Mrs. Gummidge, suddenly deserting her basket, and 
clinging to his arm, " my dear Dan'l, the parting words I speak in this 
house is, I mustn't be left behind. Doen't ye think of leaving me behind, 
Dan'l ! Oh, doen't ye ever do it ! " 

Mr. Peggotty, taken aback, looked from Mrs. Gummidge to me, and 
from me to Mrs. Gummidge, as if he had been awakened from a sleep. 

" Doen't ye, dearest Dan'l, doen't ye ! " cried Mrs. Gummidge, fervently. 
" Take me 'long with you, Dan'l, take me 'long with you and Em'ly ! 
I '11 be your servant, constant and trew. If there 's slaves in them parts 
where you 're a going, I '11 be bound to you for one, and happy, but doen't 
ye leave me behind, Dan'l, that 's a deary dear ! " 

" My good soul," said Mr. Peggotty, shaking his head, " you doen't 
know what a long voyage, and what a hard life 'tis ! " 

"Yes I do, Dan'l ! I can guess ! " cried Mrs. Gummidge. " But my 
parting words under this roof is, I shall go into the house and die, if I am 
not took. I can dig, Dan'l. I can work. I can live hard. I can be 
loving and patient now — more than you think, Dan'l, if you 'ft on'y try 
me. I wouldn't touch the 'lowance, not if I was dying of want, Dan'l 
Peggotty ; but I '11 go with you and Em'ly, if you '11 on'y let me, to the 
world's end ! I know how 'tis ; I know you think that I am lone and 
lorn ; but, deary love, 'tan't so no more ! I an't sat here, so long, a 
watching, and a thinking of your trials, without some good being done 
me. Mas'r Davy, speak to him for me ! I knows his ways, and Em'ly's, 
and I knows their sorrows, and can be a comfort to 'em, some odd times, 
and labor for 'em alius ! Dan'l, deary Dan'l, let me go 'long with you ! " 

And Mrs. Gummidge took his hand, and kissed it with a homely pathos 
and affection, in a homely rapture of devotion and gratitude, that he well 
deserved. 

We brought the locker out, extinguished the candle, fastened the door on 



OP DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 



525 



the outside, and left the old boat close shut up, a dark speck in the cloudy 
night. Next day, when we were returning to London outside the coach, 
Mrs. Gummidge and her basket were on the seat behind, and Mrs. Gum- 
midge was happy. 



CHAPTER LIL 



I ASSIST AT AN EXPLOSION, 



When the time Mr. Micawber had appointed so mysteriously, was within 
four-and-twenty hours of being come, my aunt and I consulted how we 
should proceed ; for my aunt was very unwilling to leave Dora. Ah ! how 
easily I carried Dora up and down stairs, now ! 

We were disposed, notwithstanding Mr. Micawber's stipulation for my 
aunt's attendance, to arrange that she should stay at home, and be repre- 
sented by Mr. Dick and me. In short, we had resolved to take this course, 
when Dora again unsettled us by declaring that she never would forgive 
herself, and never would forgive her bad boy, if my aunt remained behind, 
on any pretence. 

" I won't speak to you," said Dora, shaking her curls at my aunt. 
et I '11 be disagreeable ! I '11 make Jip bark at you all day. I shall be 
sure that you really are a cross old thing, if you don't go ! " 

" Tut, Blossom ! " laughed my aunt. " You know you can't do 
without me!" 

" Yes, I can," said Dora. "You are no use to me at all. You never 
run up and down stairs for me, all day long. You never sit and tell me 
stories about Doady, when his shoes were worn out, and he was covered 
with dust — oh, what a poor little mite of a fellow ! You never do any- 
thing at all to please me, do you, dear ? " Dora made haste to kiss my 
aunt, and say, " Yes, you do ! I 'm only joking ! " — lest my aunt should 
think she really meant it. 

" But, aunt," said Dora, coaxingly, " now listen. You must go. I 
shall tease you, 'till you let me have my own way about it. I shall lead 
my naughty boy suck a life, if he don't make you go. I shall make myself 
so disagreeable — and so will Jip ! You '11 wish you had gone, like a good 
thing, for ever and ever so long, if you don't go. Besides," said Dora, 
putting back her hair, and looking wonderingly at my aunt and me, 
" why shouldn't you both go ? I am not very ill indeed. Am I ? " 

" Why, what a question ! " cried my aunt. 

" What a fancy ! " said I. 

" Yes ! I know I am a silly little thing ! " said Dora, slowly looking 
from one of us to the other, and then putting up her pretty lips to kiss us 
as she lay upon her couch. " Well, then, you must both go, or I shall not 
believe you ; and then I shall cry ! " 

T saw, in my aunt's face, that she began to give way now, and Dora 
brightened again, as she saw it too. 

" You '11 come back with so much to tell me, that it '11 take at least a 
week to make me understand ! " said Dora. " Because I hioio I sha'n't 
understand, for a length of time, if there's any business in it. And 
there 's sure to be some business in it ! If there 's any thing to add up, 



526 THE TERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

besides, I don't know when I shall make it out ; and my bad boy will look 
so miserable all the time. There ! Now you '11 go, won't you ? You '11 
only be gone one night, and Jip will take care of me while you are gone. 
Doady will carry me up stairs before you go, and I won't come down 
again till you come back ; and you shall take Agnes a dreadfully scolding 
letter from me, because she has never been to see us ! " 

We agreed, without any more consultation, that we would both go, and 
that Dora was a little Impostor, who feigned to be rather unwell, because 
she liked to be petted. She was greatly pleased, and very merry ; and we 
four, that is to say, my aunt, Mi*. Dick, Traddles, and I, went down to 
Canterbury by the Dover mail that night. 

At the hotel where Mr. Micawber had requested us to await him, which 
we got into, with some trouble, in the middle of the night, I found a 
letter, importing that he would appear in the morning punctually at half- 
past nine. After which, we went shivering, at that uncomfortable hour, to 
our respective beds, through various close passages; which smelt as if they 
had been steeped, for ages, in a solution of soup and stables. 

Early in the morning, I sauntered through the dear old tranquil streets, 
and again mingled with the shadows of the venerable gateways and 
churches. The rooks were sailing about the cathedral towers ; and the 
towers themselves, overlooking many a long unaltered mile of the rich 
country and its pleasant streams, were cutting the bright morning air, as 
if there were no such thing as change on earth. Yet the bells, when they 
sounded, told me sorrowfully of change in everything ; told me of their 
own age, and my pretty Dora's youth ; and of the many, never old, who had 
lived and loved and died, while the reverberations of the bells had hummed 
through the rusty armour of the Black Prince hanging up within, and, 
motes upon the deep of Time, had lost themselves in air, as circles do in 
water. 

I looked at the old house from the corner of the street, but did not go 
nearer to it, lest, being observed, I might unwittingly do any harm to the 
design I had come to aid. The early sun was striking edgewise on its 
gables and lattice-windows, touching them with gold; and some beams 
of its old peace seemed to touch my heart. 

I strolled into the country for an hour or so, and then returned by the 
main street, which in the interval had shaken off its last night's sleep. 
Among those who were stirring in the shops, I saw my ancient enemy the 
butcher, now advanced to top-boots and a baby, and in business for himself. 
He was nursing the baby, and appeared to be a benignant member of society. 

We all became very anxious and impatient, when we sat down to break- 
fast. As it approached nearer and nearer to half-past nine o'clock, our restless 
expectation of Mr. Micawber increased. At last we made no more pre- 
tence of attending to the meal, which, except with Mr. Dick, had been a 
mere form from the first ; but my aunt walked up and down the room, 
Traddles sat upon the sofa affecting to read the paper with his eyes on 
the ceiling ; and I looked out of the window to give early notice of Mr. 
Micawber's coming. Nor had I long to watch, for, at the first chime of 
the half hour, he appeared in the street. 

" Here he is," said I, " and not in his legal attire ! " 

My aunt tied the strings of her bonnet (she had come down to breakfast 
in it), and put on her shawl, as if she were ready for anything that was 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD, 527 

resolute and uncompromising. Traddles buttoned liis coat with a deter- 
mined air. Mr. Dick, disturbed by these formidable appearances, but feeling- 
it necessary to imitate them, pulled his hat, with both hands, as firmly over 
his ears as he possibly could ; and instantly took it off again, to welcome 
Mr. Micawber. 

" Gentlemen, and madam," said Mr. Micawber, " good morning ! My 
dear sir," to Mr. Dick, who shook hands with him violently, " you are 
extremely good." 

" Have you breakfasted ? " said Mr. Dick. " Have a chop ! " 

" Not for the world, my good sir ! " cried Mr. Micawber, stopping him 
on his way to the bell ; " appetite and myself, Mr. Dixon, have long been 
strangers." 

Mr. Dixon was so pleased with his new name, and appeared to think it 
so very obliging in Mr. Micawber to confer it upon him, that he shook 
hands with him again, and laughed rather childishly. 

"Dick," said my aunt, "attention! " 

Mr. Dick recovered himself, with a blush. 

" Now, sir," said my aunt to Mr. Micawber, as she put on her gloves, 
" we are ready for Mount Vesuvius, or anything else, as soon as you 
please." 

" Madam," returned Mr. Micawber, " I trust you will shortly witness 
an eruption. Mr. Traddles, I have your permission, I believe, to mention 
here that we have been in communication together ? " 

" It is undoubtedly the fact, Copperfield," said Traddles, to whom I 
looked in surprise. " Mr. Micawber has consulted me, in reference to 
what he has in contemplation ; and I have advised him to the best of my 
judgment." 

"Unless I deceive myself, Mr. Traddles," pursued Mr. Micawber, 
" what I contemplate is a disclosure of an important nature." 

" Highly so," said Traddles. 

"Perhaps, under such circumstances, madam and gentlemen," said 
Mr. Micawber, " you will do me the favor to submit yourselves, for the 
moment, to the direction of one, who, however unworthy to be regarded in 
any other light but as a Waif and Stray upon the shore of human nature, is 
still your fellow man, though crushed out of his original form by individual 
errors, and the accumulative force of a combination of circumstances ? " 

" We have perfect confidence in you, Mr. Micawber," said I, " and will 
do what you please." 

" Mr. Copperfield," returned Mr. Micawber, " your confidence is not, 
at the existing juncture, ill-bestowed. I would beg to be allowed a start 
of five minutes by the clock ; and then to receive the present company, 
inquiring for Miss Wickfield, at the office of Wickfield and Heep, whose 
Stipendiary I am." 

My aunt and I looked at Traddles, who nodded his approval. 

" I have no more," observed Mr. Micawber, " to say at present." 

With which, to my infinite surprise, he included us all in a comprehen- 
sive bow, and disappeared ; his manner being extremely distant, and his 
face extremely pale. 

Traddles only smiled, and shook his head (with his hair standing- 
upright on the top of it), when I looked to him for an explanation ; 
so I took out my watch, and, as a last resource, counted off the five 



528 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

minutes. My aunt, with her own watch in her hand, did the like. When the 
time was expired, Traddles gave her his arm ; and we all went out together 
to the old house, without saying one word on the way. 

We found Mr. Micawber at his desk, in the turret office on the ground 
floor, either writing, or pretending to write, hard. The large office-ruler 
was stuck into his waistcoat, and was not so well concealed but that a 
foot or more of that instrument protruded from his bosom, like a new kind 
of shirt-frill. 

As it appeared to me that I was expected to speak, I said aloud : 

" How do you do, Mr. Micawber? " 

" Mr. Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, gravely, "I hope I see you well?" 

"Is Miss Wickfield at home? " said I. 

" Mr. Wickfield is unwell in bed, sir, of a rheumatic fever," he returned ; 
" but Miss Wickfield, I have no doubt, will be happy to see old friends. 
Will you walk in, sir? " 

He preceded us to the dining-room — the first room I had entered in 
that house — and flinging open the door of Mr. Wickfield's former office, 
said, in a sonorous voice : 

" Miss Trotwood, Mr. David Copperfield, Mr. Thomas Traddles, and 
Mr. Dixon!" 

I had not seen Uriah Heep since the time of the blow. Our visit 
astonished him, evidently ; not the less, I dare say, because it astonished 
ourselves. He did not gather his eyebrows together, for he had none 
worth mentioning ; but he frowned to that degree that he almost closed his 
small eyes, while the hurried raising of his grisly hand to his chin betrayed 
some trepidation or surprise. This was only when we were in the act of 
entering his room, and when I caught a glance at him over my aunt's 
shoulder. A moment afterwards, he was as fawning and as humble as ever. 

"Well, I am sure," he said. "This is indeed an unexpected pleasure ! 
To have, as I may say, all friends round Saint Paul's, at once, is a treat 
unlooked for ! Mr. Copperfield, I hope I see you well, and — if I may 
umbly express self so — friendly towards them as is ever your friends, 
whether or not. Mrs. Copperfield, sir, I hope she 's getting on. We have 
been made quite uneasy by the poor accounts we have had of her state, 
lately, I do assure you." 

I felt ashamed to let him take my hand, but I did not know yet what 
else to do. 

"Things are changed in this office, Miss Trotwood, since I was a numble 
clerk, and held your pony ; ain't they ? " said Uriah, with his sickliest 
smile. "But Jam not changed, Miss Trotwood," 

" Well, sir," returned my aunt, "to tell you the truth, I think you are 
pretty constant to the promise of your youth ; if that 's any satisfaction 
to you." 

" Thank you, Miss Trotwood," said Uriah, writhing in his ungainly 
manner, " for your good opinion ! Micawber, tell 'em to let Miss Agnes 
know — and mother. Mother will be quite in a state, when she sees the 
present company ! " said Uriah, setting chairs. 

" You are not busy, Mr. Heep ? " said Traddles, whose eye the cunning 
red eye accidentally caught, as it at once scrutinised and evaded us. 

"No, Mr. Traddles," replied Uriah, resuming his official seat, and 
squeezing his bony hands, laid palm to palm, between his bony knees. 



OP DAVID COPPEKPIELD. 529 

" Not so much so, as I could wish. But lawyers, sharks, and leeches, are 
not easily satisfied, you know ! Not but what myself and Micawber have 
our hands pretty full, in general, on account of Mr. Wickfield's being 
hardly fit for any occupation, sir. But it 's a pleasure as well as a duty, I 
am sure, to work for Mm. You 've not been intimate with Mr. Wickfield, 
I think, Mr. Traddles ? I believe I 've only had the honor of seeing you 
once myself ? " 

" No, I have not been intimate with Mr. Wickfield," returned Traddles; 
" or I might perhaps have waited on you long ago, Mr. Heep." 

There was something in the tone of this reply, which made Uriah look 
at the speaker again, with a very sinister and suspicious expression. But, 
seeing only Traddles with his good-natured face, simple manner, and hair 
on end, he dismissed it as he replied, with a jerk of his whole body, but 
especially his throat : 

" I am sorry for that, Mr. Traddles. You would have admired him as 
much as we all do. His little failings would only have endeared him to you 
the more. But if you would like to hear my fellow-partner eloquently spoken 
of, I should refer you to Copperfield. The family is a subject he 's very 
strong upon, if you never heard him." 

I was prevented from disclaiming the compliment (if I should have 
done so, in any case), by the entrance of Agnes, now ushered in by Mr. 
Micawber. She was not quite so self-possessed as usual, I thought; and had 
evidently undergone anxiety and fatigue. But her earnest cordiality, and 
her quiet beauty, shone with the gentler lustre for it. 

I saw Uriah watch her while she greeted us ; and he reminded me of 
an ugly and rebellious genie watching a good spirit. In the meanwhile, 
some slight sign passed between Mr. Micawber and Traddles; and 
Traddles, unobserved except by me, went out. 

" Don't wait, Micawber," said Uriah. 

Mr. Micawber, with his hand upon the ruler in his breast, stood erect 
before the door, most unmistakeably contemplating one of his fellow-men, 
and that man his employer. 

" What are you waiting for ? " said Uriah. " Micawber ! Did you hear 
me tell you not to wait ? " 

" Yes ! " replied the immovable Mr. Micawber. 

" Then why do you wait ? " said Uriah. 

" Because I — in short choose," replied Mr. Micawber, with a burst. 

Uriah's cheeks lost colour, and an unwholesome paleness, still faintly 
tinged by his pervading red, overspread them. He looked at Mr. Micawber 
attentively, with his whole face breathing short and quick in every feature. 

" You are a dissipated fellow, as all the world knows," he said, with an 
effort at a smile, " and I am afraid you '11 oblige me to get rid of you. Go 
along ! I '11 talk to you presently." 

" If there is a scoundrel on this earth," said Mr. Micawber, suddenly 
breaking out again with the utmost vehemence, " with whom I have already 
talked too much, that scoundrel's name is — Heep ! " 

Uriah fell back, as if he had been struck or stung. Looking slowly 
round upon us with the darkest and wickedest expression that his face 
could wear, he said, in a lower voice : 

" Oho ! This is a conspiracy I You have met here, by appointment ! 
You are playing Booty with my clerk, are you, Copperfield ? .■ Now, take 

M M 



530 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

care. You '11 make nothing of this. We understand each other, you and 
me. There's no love between us. You were always a puppy with a 
proud stomach, from your first coming here ; and you envy me my rise, do 
you ? None of your plots against me ; I '11 counterplot you ! Micawber, 
you be off. I '11 talk to you presently." 

" Mr. Micawber," said I, " there is a sudden change in this fellow, in 
more respects than the extraordinary one of his speaking the truth in one 
particular, which assures me that he is brought to bay. Deal with him 
as he deserves ! " 

" You are a precious set of people, ain't you ? " said Uriah, in the 
same low voice, and breaking out into a clammy heat, which he wiped 
from his forehead, with his long lean hand, " to buy over my clerk, who 
is the very scum of society, — as you yourself were, Copperfield, you know 
it, before anyone had charity on you, — to defame me with his lies ? 
Miss Trotwood, you had better stop this ; or I '11 stop your husband 
shorter than will be pleasant to you. I won't know your story profes- 
sionally, for nothing, old lady ! Miss Wickfield, if you have any love for 
your father, you had better not join that gang. I '11 ruin him, if you do. 
Now, come ! I have got some of you under the harrow. Think twice, 
before it goes over you. Think twice, you, Micawber, if you don't want 
to be crushed. I recommend you to take yourself off, and be talked to 
presently, you fool ! while there 's time to retreat. Where 's mother ! " 
he said, suddenly appearing to notice, with alarm, the absence of Traddles, 
and pulling down the bell-rope. " Fine doings in a person's own 
house!" 

" Mrs. Heep is here, sir," said Traddles, returning with that worthy 
mother of a worthy son. " I have taken the liberty of making myself 
known to her." 

"Who are you to make yourself known?" retorted Uriah. "And 
what do you want here ? " 

" I am the agent and friend of Mr Wickfield, sir," said Traddles, in a 
composed business-like way. "And I have a power of attorney from him 
in my pocket, to act for him in all matters." 

" The old ass has drunk himself into a state of dotage," said Uriah, 
turning uglier than before, " and it has been got from him by fraud ! " 

" Something has been got from him by fraud, I know," returned 
Traddles quietly; "and so do you, Mr. Heep. We will refer that question, 
if you please, to Mr. Micawber." 

" Ury — !" Mrs. Heep began, with an anxious gesture. 

"You hold your tongue, mother," he returned; "least said, soonest 
mended." 

" But my Ury—." 

"Will you hold your tongue, mother, and leave it to me?" 

Though I had long known that his servility was false, and all his pre- 
tences knavish and hollow, I had had no adequate conception of the 
extent of his hypocrisy, until I now saw him with his mask off. The 
suddenness with which he dropped it, when he perceived that it was use- 
less to him ; the malice, insolence, and hatred, he revealed ; the leer with 
which he exulted, even at this moment, in the evil he had done — 
all this time being desperate too, and at his wits' end for the means 
of getting the better of us — though perfectly consistent with the expe- 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 531 

rience I had of him, at first took even me by surprise, who had known 
him so long, and disliked him so heartily. 

I say nothing of the look he conferred on me, as he stood eyeing us, 
one after another ; for I had always understood that he hated me, and I 
remembered the marks of my hand upon his cheek. But when his eyes 
passed on to Agnes, and I saw the rage with which he felt his power over 
her slipping away, and the exhibition, in their disappointment, of the 
odious passions that had led him to aspire to one whose virtues he could 
never appreciate or care for, I was shocked by the mere thought of her 
having lived, an hour, within sight of such a man. 

After some rubbing of the lower part of his face, and some looking at 
us with those bad eyes, over his grisly fingers, he made one more address 
to me, half whining, and half abusive. 

" You think it justifiable, do you, Copperfield, you who pride yourself 
so much on your honor and all the rest of it, to sneak about my place, 
eaves-dropping with my clerk ? If it had been me, I shouldn't have 
wondered ; for I don't make myself out a gentleman (though I never was 
in the streets either, as you were, according to Micawber), but being you! 
— And you 're not afraid of doing this, either ? You don't think at all of 
what I shall do, in return ; or of getting yourself into trouble for conspiracy 
and so forth ? Very well. We shall see ! Mr. What's-your-name, you 
were going to refer some question to MicaVber. There 's your referee. 
Why don't you make him speak? He has learnt his lesson, I see." 

Seeing that what he said had no effect on me or any of us, he sat on the 
edge of his table with his hands in his pockets, and one of his splay feet 
twisted round the other leg, waiting doggedly for what might follow. 

Mr. Micawber, whose impetuosity I had restrained thus far with the 
greatest difficulty, and who had repeatedly interposed with the first syllable 
of ScouN-drel ! without getting to the second, now burst forward, drew 
the ruler from his breast (apparently as a defensive weapon), and produced 
from his pocket a foolscap document, folded in the form of a large letter. 
Opening this packet, with his old flourish, and glancing at the contents, 
as if he cherished an artistic admiration of their style of composition, 
he began to read as follows : 

" ' Dear Miss Trotwood and gentlemen ' " 

" Bless and save the man ! " exclaimed my aunt in a low voice. " He 'd 
write letters by the ream, if it was a capital offence ! " 

Mr. Micawber, without hearing her, went on. 

" * In appearing before you to denounce probably the most consummate 
Villain that has ever existed,' " Mr. Micawber, without looking off the 
letter, pointed the ruler, like a ghostly truncheon, at Uriah Heep, " ' I ask 
no consideration for myself. The victim, from my cradle, of pecuniary 
liabilities to which I have been unable to respond, I have ever been the sport 
and toy of debasing circumstances. Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Mad- 
ness, have, collectively or separately, been the attendants of my career.' " 

The relish with which Mr. Micawber described himself, as a prey to 
these dismal calamities, was only to be equalled by the emphasis with 
which he read his letter ; and the kind of homage he rendered to it with a 
roll of his head, when he thought he had hit a sentence very hard indeed. 

" ' In an accumulation of Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, I 
entered the office — or, as our lively neighbour the Gaul would term it, 

m m 2 



5'6'Z THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

the Bureau — of the Firm, nominally conducted under the appellation of 
Wickfield and — Heep, but, in reality, wielded by — Heep alone. Heep, 
and only Heep, is the mainspring of that machine. Heep, and only 
Heep, is the Forger and the Cheat.' " 

Uriah, more blue than white at these words, made a dart at the letter, 
as if to tear it in pieces. Mr. Micawber, with a perfect miracle of dex- 
terity or luck, caught his advancing knuckles with the ruler, and disabled 
his right hand. It dropped at the wrist, as if it were broken. The blow 
sounded as if it had fallen on wood. 

" The Devil take you ! " said Uriah, writhing in a new way with pain. 
" I '11 be even with you." 

" Approach me again, you — you — you Heep of infamy," gasped Mr. 
Micawber, " and if your head is human, I '11 break it. Come on, come on ! " 

I think I never saw anything more ridiculous— I was sensible of it, 
even at the time — than Mr. Micawber making broad-sword guards with 
the ruler, and crying " Come on ! " while Traddles and I pushed him 
back into a corner, from which, as often as we got him into it, he persisted 
in emerging again. 

His enemy, muttering to himself, after wringing his wounded hand for 
some time, slowly drew oft' his neck-kerchief and bound it up ; then, held it 
in his other hand, and sat upon his table with his sullen face looking down. 

Mr. Micawber, when he was sufficiently cool, proceeded with his letter. 

" ' The stipendiary emoluments in consideration of which I entered into 
the service of — Heep,' " always pausing before that word, and uttering it 
with astonishing vigor, " 'were not defined, beyond the pittance of twenty- 
two shillings and six per week. The rest was left contingent on the value of 
my professional exertions ; in other and more expressive words, on the base- 
ness of my nature, the cupidity of my motives, the poverty of my family, 
the general moral (or rather immoral) resemblance between myself and — 
Heep. Need I say, that it soon became necessary for me to solicit from — 
Heep — pecuniary advances towards the support of Mrs. Micawber, and 
our blighted but rising family ! Need I say that this necessity had been 
foreseen by — Heep ? That those advances were secured by I O U's and 
other similar acknowledgments, known to the legal institutions of this 
country. And that I thus became immeshed in the web he had spun for 
my reception ? ' " 

Mr. Micawber's enjoyment of his epistolary powers, in describing this 
unfortunate state of things, really seemed to outweigh any pain or anxiety 
that the reality could have caused him. He read on : 

" 'Then it was that — Heep — began to favor me with just so much of his 
confidence, as was necessary to the discharge of his infernal business. Then 
it was that I began, if I may so Shakespearianly express myself, to dwindle, 
peak, and pine. I found that my services were constantly called into 
requisition for the falsification of business, and the mystification of an 
individual whom I will designate as Mr. W. That Mr. W. was imposed upon, 
kept in ignorance, and deluded, in every possible way ; yet, that all this while, 
the ruffian — Heef — was professing unbounded gratitude to, and unbounded 
friendship for, that much abused gentleman. This was bad enough ; but, as 
the philosophic Dane observes, with that universal applicability which dis- 
tinguishes the illustrious ornament of the Elizabethian Era, worse remains 
behind!'" 



OF DAVID COPPEUEIELD. 533 

Mr. Micawber was so very much struck by this happy rounding off 
with a quotation, that he indulged himself, and us, with a second reading 
of the sentence, under pretence of having lost his place. 

" ' It is not my intention,' " he continued, reading on, " 'to enter on a 
detailed list, within the compass of the present epistle (though it is ready 
elsewhere), of the various malpractices of a minor nature, affecting the in- 
dividual whom I have denominated Mr. W., to which I have been a tacitly 
consenting party. My object, when the contest within myself between 
stipend and no stipend, baker and no baker, existence and non-existence, 
ceased, was to take advantage of my opportunities to discover and expose 
the major malpractices committed, to that gentleman's grievous wrong 
and injury, by — Heep. Stimulated by the silent monitor within, and by a 
no less touching and appealing monitor without — to whom I will briefly 
refer as Miss W. — I entered on a not unlaborious task of clandestine 
investigation, protracted now, to the best of nry knowledge, information, 
and belief, over a period exceeding twelve calendar months.' " 

He read this passage, as if it were from an Act of Parliament ; and 
appeared majestically refreshed by the sound of the words. 

"'My charges against — Heep,'" he read on, glancing at him, and 
drawing the ruler into a convenient position under his left arm, in case of 
need, " c are as follows.' " 

We all held our breath, I think. I am sure Uriah held his. 

" ' First,' " said Mr. Micawber. " ' When Mr. W.'s faculties and memory 
for business became, through, causes into which it is not necessary or 
expedient for me to enter, weakened and confused,^ — Heep — designedly 
perplexed and complicated the whole of the official transactions. When 
Mr. W. was least fit to enter on business, — Heep — was always at hand to 
force him to enter on it. He obtained Mr. W.'s signature under such cir- 
cumstances to documents of importance, representing them to be other 
documents of no importance. He induced Mr. W. to empower him to draw 
out, thus, one particular sum of trust-money, amounting to twelve six 
fourteen, two, and nine, and employed it to meet pretended business charges 
and deficiencies which were either already provided for, or had never really 
existed. He gave this proceeding, throughout, the appearance of having 
originated in Mr. W.'s own dishonest intention, and of having been accom- 
plished by Mr. W.'s own dishonest act ; and has used it, ever since, to 
torture and constrain him.' " 

" You shall prove this, you Copperfield ! " said Uriah, with a threatening 
shake of the head. " All in good time !" 

" Ask — Heep — Mr. Traddles, who lived in his house after him," said 
Mr. Micawber, breaking off from the letter ; " will you ? " 

" The fool himself — and lives there now," said Uriah, disdainfully. 

" Ask — Heep — if he ever kept a pocket-book in that house," said Mr. 
Micawber ; " will you ? " 

I saw Uriah's lank hand stop, involuntarily, in the scraping of his chin. 

" Or ask him," said Mr. Micawber, " if he ever burnt one there. If 
he says yes, and asks you where the ashes are, refer him to Wilkins 
Micawber, and he will hear of something not at all to his advantage ! " 

The triumphant flourish with which Mr. Micawber delivered himself of 
these words, had a powerful effect in alarming the mother ; who cried out, 
in much agitation : 



534 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Ury, Ury ! Be unable, and make terms, my dear ! " 

" Mother ! " lie retorted, " will you keep quiet ? You 're in a fright, and 
don't know what you say or mean. Umble ! " he repeated, looking at me, 
with a snarl ; " I 've umbled some of 'em for a pretty long time back, 
umble as I was ! " 

Mr. Micawber, genteelly adjusting his chin in his cravat, presently 
proceeded with his composition. 

" ' Second. Heep has, on several occasions, to the best of my know- 
ledge, information, and belief " — 

" But that won't do," muttered Uriah, relieved. " Mother, you keep 
quiet." 

" We will endeavour to provide something that will do, and do for 
you finally, sir, very shortly," replied Mr. Micawber. 

" ' Second. Heep has, on several occasions, to the best of my knowledge, 
information, and belief, systematically forged, to various entries, -books, 
and documents, the signature of Mr. W. ; and has distinctly done so in 
one instance, capable of proof by me. To wit, in manner following, that 
is to say : ' " 

Again, Mr. Micawber had a relish in this formal piling up of words, 
which, however ludicrously displayed in his case, was, I must say, not at 
all peculiar to him. I have observed it, in the course of my life, in num- 
bers of men. It seems to me to be a general rule. In the taking of legal 
oaths, for instance, deponents seem to enjoy themselves mightily when 
they come to several good words in succession, for the expression of one 
idea ; as, that they utterly detest, abominate, and abjure, or so forth ; and 
the old anathemas were made relishing on the same principle. We talk 
about the tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannise over them too ; we 
are fond of having a large superfluous establishment of words to wait 
upon us on great occasions ; we think it looks important, and sounds 
well. As we are not particular about the meaning of our liveries on state 
occasions, if they be but fine and numerous enough, so, the meaning or 
necessity of our words is a secondary consideration, if there be but a great 
parade of them. And as individuals get into trouble by making too great 
a show of liveries, or as slaves when they are too numerous rise against 
their masters, so I think I could mention a nation that has got into many 
great difficulties, and will get into many greater, from maintaining too 
large a retinue of words. 

Mr. Micawber read on, almost smacking his lips : 

" ' To wit, in manner following, that is to say. Mr. W. being infirm, 
and it being within the bounds of probability that his decease might lead 
to some discoveries, and to the downfall of — Heep's — power over the W. 
family, — as I, Wilkins Micawber, the undersigned, assume — unless the 
filial affection of his daughter could be secretly influenced from allowing 
any investigation of the partnership affairs to be ever made, the said 
— Heep — deemed it expedient to have a bond ready by him, as from 
Mr. W., for the before-mentioned sum of twelve six fourteen, two and 
nine, with interest, stated therein to have been advanced by — Heep — to 
Air. W. to save Mr. W. from dishonor ; though really the sum was never 
advanced by him, and has long been replaced. The signatures to this 
instrument, purporting to be executed by Mr. W. and attested by Wilkins 
Micawber, are forgeries by — Heep. I have, in my possession, in his 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



535 



hand and pocket-book, several similar imitations of Mr. W.'s signature, 
here and there defaced by fire, but legible to any one. I never attested 
any such document. And I have the document itself, in my possession.' " 

Uriah Heep, with a start, took out of his pocket a bunch of keys, and 
opened a certain drawer ; then, suddenly bethought himself of what he 
was about, and turned again towards us, without looking in it. 

" 'And I have the document,'" Mr. Micawber read again, looking 
about as if it were the text of a sermon, " ' in my possession,' — that is to 
say, I had, early this morning, when this was written, but have since 
relinquished it to Mr. Traddles." 

"It is quite true," assented Traddles. 

" Ury, Ury I" cried the mother, " be umble and make terms. I know 
my son will be umble, gentlemen, if you '11 give him time to think. Mr. 
Copperfield, I'm sure you know that he was always very umble, sir !" 

It was singular to see how the mother still held to the old trick, when 
the son had abandoned it as useless. 

" Mother," he said, with an impatient bite at the handkerchief in which 
his hand was wrapped, " you had better take and fire a loaded gun at me." 

"But I love you, Ury," cried Mrs. Heep. And I have no doubt she 
did ; or that he loved her, however strange it may appear ; though, to be 
sure, they were a congenial couple. "And I can't bear to hear you 
provoking the gentlemen, and endangering of yourself more. I told the 
gentleman at first, when he told me up-stairs it was come to light, that 
I would answer for your being umble, and making amends. Oh, see how 
umble I am, gentlemen, and don't mind him ! " 

" Why, there 's Copperfield, mother," he angrily retorted, pointing his 
lean finger at me, against whom all his animosity was levelled, as the 
prime mover in the discovery ; and I did not undeceive him ; " there 's 
Copperfield, would have given you a hundred pound to say less than you've 
blurted out ! " 

" I can't help it, Ury," cried his mother. " I can't see you running 
into danger, through carrying your head so high. Better be umble, as 
you always was." 

He remained for a little, biting the handkerchief, and then said to me 
with a scowl : 

"What more have you got to bring forward? If anything, go on with 
it. What do you look at me for ? " 

Mr. Micawber promptly resumed his letter, only too glad to revert to a 
performance with which he was so highly satisfied. 

" ' Third. And last. I am now in a condition to show, by — Heep's — 
false books, and — Heep's — real memoranda, beginning with the partially 
destroyed pocket-book (which I was unable to comprehend, at the time of 
its accidental discovery by Mrs. Micawber, on our taking possession of our 
present abode, in the locker or binn devoted to the reception of the ashes 
calcined on our domestic hearth), that the weaknesses, the faults, the very 
virtues, the parental affections, and the sense of honor, of the unhappy Mr. 
W. have been for years acted on by, and warped to the base purposes of — 
Heep. That Mr. W. has been for years deluded and plundered, in every 
conceivable manner, to the pecuniary aggrandisement of the avaricious, 
false, and grasping — Heep. That the engrossing object of — Heep — was, 
next to gain, to subdue Mr. and Miss W. (of his ulterior views in reference 



536 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

to the latter I say nothing) entirely to himself. That his last act, com- 
pleted but a few months since, was to induce Mr. W. to execute a relin- 
quishment of his share in the partnership, and even a bill of sale on the 
very furniture of his house, in consideration of a certain annuity, to be 
well and truly paid by — Heep — on the four common quarter-days in each 
and every year. That these meshes; beginning with alarming and falsified 
accounts of the estate of which Mr. W. is the receiver, at a period when 
Mr. W. had launched into imprudent and ill-judged speculations, and 
may not have had the money, for which he was morally and legally 
responsible, in hand ; going on with pretended borrowings of money at 
enormous interest, really coming from — Heep — and by — Heep — fraudu- 
lently obtained or withheld from Mr. W. himself, on pretence of such 
speculations or otherwise ; perpetuated by a miscellaneous catalogue of 
unscrupulous chicaneries — gradually thickened, until the unhappy Mr. W. 
could see no world beyond. Bankrupt, as he believed, alike in circum- 
stances, in all other hope, and in honor, his sole reliance was upon the 
monster in the garb of man,' " — Mr. Micawber made a good deal of this, 
as a new turn of expression, — " c who, by making himself necessary to 
him, had achieved his destruction. All this I undertake to show. 
Probably much more !' " 

I whispered a few words to Agnes, who was weeping, half joyfully, 
half-sorrowfully, at my side ; and there was a movement among us, as if 
Mr. Micawber had finished. He said, with exceeding gravity, "Pardon 
me," and proceeded, with a mixture of the lowest spirits and the most 
intense enjoyment, to the peroration of his letter. 

" ' I have now concluded. It merely remains for me to substantiate 
these accusations ; and then, with my ill-starred family, to disappear from 
the landscape on which we appear to be an incumbrance. That is soon 
done. It may be reasonably inferred that our baby will first expire of 
inanition, as being the frailest member of our circle ; and that our twins 
will follow next in order. So be it ! For myself, my Canterbury Pil- 
grimage has done much ; imprisonment on civil process, and want, will 
soon do more. I trust that the labor and hazard of an investigation — of 
which the smallest results have been slowly pieced together, in the pressure 
of arduous avocations, under grinding penurious apprehensions, at rise of 
morn, at dewy eve, in the shadows of night, under the watchful eye of one 
whom it were superfluous to call Demon — combined with the struggle 
of parental Poverty to turn it, when completed, to the right account, may 
be as the sprinkling of a few drops of sweet water on my funereal pyre. 
I ask no more. Let it be, in justice, merely said of me, as of a gallant 
and eminent naval Hero, with whom I have no pretensions to cope, that 
what I have done, I did, in despite of mercenary and selfish objects, 
For England, home, and Beauty. 

" ' Remaining always, &c. &c, Wilkin s Micawber.' " 

Much affected, but still intensely enjoying himself, Mr. Micawber folded 
up his letter, and handed it with a bow to my aunt, as something she 
might like to keep. 

There was, as I had noticed on my first visit long ago, an iron safe in 
the room. The key was in it. A hasty suspicion seemed to strike Uriah ; 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 537 

and, witli a glance at Mr. Micawber, he went to it, and threw the doors 
clanking open. It was empty. 

" Where are the books ! " he cried, with a frightful face. " Some thief 
has stolen the books ! " 

Mr. Micawber tapped himself with the ruler. " I did, when I got the 
key from you as usual — but a little earlier — and opened it this morning." 

"Don't be uneasy," said Traddles. " They have come into my pos- 
session. I will take care of them, under the authority I mentioned." 

" You receive stolen goods, do you? " cried Uriah. 

" Under such circumstances," answered Traddles, " yes." 

What was my astonishment when I beheld my aunt, who had been 
profoundly quiet and attentive, make a dart at Uriah Heep, and seize him 
by the collar with both hands ! 

" You know what / want ? " said my aunt. 

" A strait-waistcoat," said he. 

" No. My property ! " returned my aunt. " Agnes, my dear, as long 
as I believed it had been really made away with by your father, I wouldn't 
— and, my dear, I didn't, even to Trot, as he knows — breathe a syllable 
of its having been placed here for investment. But, now I know this fellow's 
answerable for it, and I '11 have it ! Trot, come and take it away from him ! " 

Whether my aunt supposed, for the moment, that he kept her property 
in his neck-kerchief, I am sure I don't know ; but she certainly pulled at 
it as if she thought so. I hastened to put myself between them, and to 
assure her that we would all take care that he should make the utmost 
restitution of everything he had wrongly got. This, and a few moments' 
reflection, pacified her ; but she was not at all disconcerted by what she 
had done (though I cannot say as much for her bonnet) and resumed her 
seat composedly. 

During the last few minutes, Mrs. Heep had been clamoring to her 
son to be " umble ; " and had been going down on her knees to all of us 
in succession, and making the wildest promises. Her son sat her down in 
his chair ; and, standing sulkily by her, holding her arm with his hand, 
but not rudely, said to me, with a ferocious look : 

" What do you want done ? " 

" I will tell you what must be done," said Traddles. 

" Has that Copperfield no tongue ? " muttered Uriah. " I would do a 
good deal for you if you could tell me, without lying, that somebody had 
cut it out." 

" My Uriah means to be umble ! " cried his mother. " Don't mind 
what he says, good gentlemen ! " 

" What must be done," said Traddles, " is this. First, the deed of relin- 
quishment, that we have heard of, must be given over to me now — here." 

" Suppose I haven't got it," he interrupted. 

" But you have," said Traddles ; " therefore, you know, we won't sup- 
pose so." And I cannot help avowing that this was the first occasion on 
which I really did justice to the clear head, and the plain, patient, prac- 
tical good sense, of my old schoolfellow. " Then," said Traddles, " you 
must prepare to disgorge all that your rapacity has become possessed of, 
and to make restoration to the last farthing. All the partnership books 
and papers must remain in our possession ; all your books and papers ; all 
money accounts and securities, of both kinds. In short, everything here." 



538 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Must it ? I don't know that," said Uriah. " I must have time to 
think about that." 

" Certainly," replied Traddles ; " but, in the meanwhile, and until 
everything is done to our satisfaction, we shall maintain possession of 
these things ; and beg you — in short, compel you — to keep your own 
room, and hold no communication with any one." 

" I won't do it ! " said Uriah, with an oath. 

" Maidstone Jail is a safer place of detention," observed Traddles ; 
" and though the law may be longer in righting us, and may not be able 
to right us so completely as you can, there is no doubt of its punishing 
you. Dear me, you know that quite as well as I ! Copperfield, will you 
go round to the Guildhall, and bring a couple of officers ? " 

Here, Mrs. Heep broke out again, crying on her knees to Agnes to in- 
terfere in their behalf, exclaiming that he was very humble, and it was all 
true, and if he didn't do what we wanted, she would, and much more to the 
same purpose ; being half frantic with fears for her darling. To inquire 
what he might have done, if he had had any boldness, would be like 
inquiring what a mongrel cur might do, if it had the spirit of a tiger. He 
was a coward, from head to foot ; and showed his dastardly nature through 
his sullenness and mortification, as much as at any time of his mean life. 

" Stop ! " he growled to me ; and wiped his hot face with his hand. 
" Mother, hold your noise. Well ! Let 'em have that deed. Go and fetch it ! " 

" Do you help her, Mr. Dick," said Traddles, " if you please." 

Proud of his commission, and understanding it, Mr. Dick accompanied 
her as a shepherd's dog might accompany a sheep. But, Mrs. Heep gave 
him little trouble ; for she not only returned with the deed, but with the 
box in which it was, where we found a banker's book and some other 
papers that were afterwards serviceable. 

" Good ! " said Traddles, when this was brought. " Now, Mr. Heep, 
you can retire to think : particularly observing, if you please, that I de- 
clare to you, on the part of all present, that there is only one thing to be 
done ; that it is what I have explained ; and that it must be done without 
delay." 

Uriah, without lifting his eyes from the ground, shuffled across the 
room with his hand to his chin, and pausing at the door, said : ; 

" Copperfield, I have always hated you. You've always been an 
upstart, and you 've always been against me." 

" As I think I told you once before," said I, " it is you who have been, 
in your greed and cunning, against all the world. It may be profitable 
to you to reflect, in future, that there never were greed and cunning in the 
world yet, that did not do too much, and over-reach themselves. It is as 
certain as death." 

" Or as certain as they used to teach at school (the same school where 
I picked up so much umbleness), from nine o'clock to eleven, that labor 
was a curse ; and from eleven o'clock to one, that it was a blessing and a 
cheerfulness, and a dignity, and I don't know what all, eh ? " said he with a 
sneer. " You preach, about as consistent as they did. Won't umbleness 
go down ? I shouldn't have got round my gentleman fellow-partner with- 
out it, I think. — Micawber, you old bully, I '11 pay you ! " 

Mr. Micawber, supremely defiant of him and his extended finger, and 
making a great deal of his chest until he had slunk out at the door, 






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OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 539 

then addressed himself to me, and proffered me the satisfaction of " wit- 
nessing the re-establishment of mutual confidence between himself and 
Mrs. Micawber." After which, he invited the company generally to the 
contemplation of that affecting spectacle. 

" The veil that has long been interposed between Mrs. Micawber and 
myself, is now withdrawn," said Mr. Micawber ; " and my children and 
the Author of their Being can once more come in contact on equal terms." 

As we were all very grateful to him, and all desirous to show that we 
were, as well as the hurry and disorder of our spirits would permit, I dare 
say we should all have gone, but that it was necessary for Agnes to return 
to her father, as yet unable to bear more than the dawn of hope ; and 
for some one else to hold Uriah in safe keeping. So, Traddles remained 
for the latter purpose, to be presently relieved by Mr. Dick ; and Mr. Dick, 
my aunt, and I, went home with Mr. Micawber. As I parted hurriedly 
from the dear girl to whom I owed so much, and thought from what she 
had been saved, perhaps, that morning — her better resolution notwith- 
standing — I felt devoutly thankful for the miseries of my younger days 
which had brought me to the knowledge of Mr. Micawber. 

His house was not far off; and as the street-door opened into the 
sitting room, and he bolted in with a precipitation quite his own, we 
found ourselves at once in the bosom of the family. Mr. Micawber ex- 
claiming, " Emma ! my life ! " rushed into Mrs. Micawber's arms. Mrs. 
Micawber shrieked, and folded Mr. Micawber in her embrace. Miss 
Micawber, nursing the unconscious stranger of Mrs. Micawber's last 
letter to me, was sensibly affected. The stranger leaped. The twins 
testified their joy by several inconvenient but innocent demonstrations. 
Master Micawber, whose disposition appeared to have been soured by 
early disappointment, and whose aspect had become morose, yielded to his 
better feelings, and blubbered. 

" Emma ! " said Mr. Micawber. " The cloud is past from my mind. 
Mutual confidence, so long preserved between us once, is restored, to know 
no farther interruption. Now, welcome poverty ! " cried Mr. Micawber, 
shedding tears. "Welcome misery, welcome houselessness, welcome 
hunger, rags, tempest, and beggary ! Mutual confidence will sustain us 
to the end ! " 

With these expressions, Mr. Micawber placed Mrs. Micawber in a chair, 
and embraced the family all round; welcoming a variety of bleak pros- 
pects, which appeared, to the best of my judgment, to be anything but 
welcome to them ; and calling upon them to come out into Canterbury and 
sing a chorus, as nothing else was left for their support. 

But Mrs. Micawber having, in the strength of her emotions, fainted 
away, the first thing to be done, even before the chorus could be consi- 
dered complete, was to recover her. This, my aunt and Mr. Micawber did; 
and then my aunt was introduced, and Mrs. Micawber recognised me. 

" Excuse me, dear Mr. Copperfield," said the poor lady, giving me her 
hand, " but I am not strong ; and the removal of the late misunderstand- 
ing between Mr. Micawber and myself was at first too much for me." 

" Is this all your family, ma'am ? " said my aunt. 

" There are no more at present," returned Mrs. Micawber. 

" Good gracious, I didn't mean that, ma'am," said my aunt. " I mean 
are all these yours ? " 



540 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Madam," replied Mr. Micawber, "it is a true bill" ^ 

" And that eldest young gentleman, now," said my aunt, musing. 
" What has he been brought up to ? " 

" It was my hope when I came here," said Mr. Micawber, " to have 
got Wilkins into the Church : or perhaps I shall express my meaning 
more strictly, if I say the Choir. But there was no vacancy for a tenor in 
the venerable Pile for which this city is so justly eminent ; and he has — 
in short, he has contracted a habit of singing in public-houses, rather than 
in sacred edifices." 

" But he means well," said Mrs. Micawber, tenderly. 

" I dare say, my love," rejoined Mr. Micawber, " that he means par- 
ticularly well ; but I have not yet found that he carries out his meaning, 
in any given direction whatsoever." 

Master Micawber's moroseness of aspect returned upon him again, and 
he demanded, with some temper, what he was to do ? Whether he had 
been born a carpenter, or a coach painter, any more than he had been 
born a bird? Whether he could go into the next street, and open a 
chemist's shop ? Whether he could rush to the next assizes, and proclaim 
himself a lawyer ? Whether he could come out by force at the opera, and 
succeed by violence ? Whether he could do anything, without being brought 
up to something? 

My aunt mused a little while, and then said : 

" Mr. Micawber, I wonder you have never turned your thoughts to 
emigration." 

" Madam," returned Mr. Micawber, " it was the dream of my youth, 
and the fallacious aspiration of my riper years." I am thoroughly per- 
suaded, by the bye, that he had never thought of it in his life. 

" Aye ? " said my aunt, with a glance at me. " Why, what a thing 
it would be for yourselves and your family, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, if you 
were to emigrate now." 

" Capital, madam, capital," urged Mr. Micawber, gloomily. 

" That is the principal, I may say the only difficulty, my dear Mr. 
Copperfield," assented his wife. 

" Capital? " cried my aunt. "But you are doing us a great service — 
have done us a great service, I may say, for surely much will come out 
of the fire — and what could we do for you, that would be half so good as 
to find the capital? " 

" I could not receive it as a gift," said Mr. Micawber, full of fire and 
animation, "but if a sufficient sum could be advanced, say at five per cent, 
interest, per annum, upon my personal liability — say my notes of hand, 
at twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four months, respectively, to allow time 
for something to turn up " 

" Could be ? Can be, and shall be, on your own terms," returned my 
aunt, " if you say the word. Think of this now, both of you. Here are 
some people David knows, going out to Australia shortly. If you decide 
to go, why shouldn't you go in the same ship ? You may help each 
other. Think of this now, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. Take your time, 
and weigh it well." 

" There is but one question, my dear ma'am, I could wish to ask," 
said Mrs. Micawber. "The climate, I believe, is healthy." 

" Finest in the world ! " said my aunt. 



OP DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 



541 



" Just so," returned Mrs. Micawber. " Then my question arises. 
Now, are the circumstances of the country such, that a man of Mr. 
Micawber's abilities would have a fair chance of rising in the social scale ? 
I will not say, at present, might he aspire to be Governor, or anything of 
that sort ; but would there be a reasonable opening for his talents to 
develop themselves — that, would be amply sufficient — and find their own 
expansion ? " 

" No better opening anywhere," said my aunt, " for a man who conducts 
himself well, and is industrious." 

"For a man who conducts himself well," repeated Mrs. Micawber, with 
her clearest business manner, " and is industrious. Precisely. It is evident 
to me that Australia is the legitimate sphere of action for Mr. Micawber ! " 

" I entertain the conviction, my dear madam," said Mr. Micawber, 
" that it is, under existing circumstances, the land, the only land, for 
myself and family ; and that something of an extraordinary nature will 
turn up on that shore. It is no distance — comparatively speaking ; and 
though consideration is due to the kindness of your proposal, I assure 
you that is a mere matter of form." 

Shall I ever forget how, in a moment, he was the most sanguine of 
men, looking on to fortune ; or how Mrs. Micawber presently discoursed 
about the habits of the kangaroo ! Shall I ever recall that street of 
Canterbury on a market day, without recalling him, as he walked back 
with us ; expressing, in the hardy roving manner he assumed, the un- 
settled habits of a temporary sojourner in the land ; and looking at the 
bullocks, as they came by, with the eye of an Australian farmer ! 



CHAPTER LIH. 



ANOTHER RETROSPECT. 

I must pause yet once again. 0, my child-wife, there is a figure in 
the moving crowd before my memory, quiet and still, saying in its innocent 
love and childish beauty, Stop to think of me — turn to look upon the little 
blossom, as it flutters to the ground ! 

I do. All else grows dim, and fades away. I am again with Dora, in our 
cottage. I do not know how long she has been ill. I am so used to it 
in feeling, that I cannot count the time. It is not really long, in weeks or 
months ; but, in my usage and experience, it is a weary, weary while. 

They have left off telling me to " wait a few days more." I have begun 
to fear, remotely, that the day may never shine, when I shall see my child- 
wife running in the sunlight with her old friend Jip. 

He is, as it were suddenly, grown very old. It may be, that he misses 
in his mistress, something that enlivened him and made him younger ; but 
he mopes, and his sight is weak, and his limbs are feeble, and my aunt is 
sorry that he objects to her no more, but creeps near her as he lies on 
Dora's bed — she sitting at the bedside — and mildly licks her hand. 

Dora lies smiling on us, and is beautiful, and utters no hasty or com- 
plaining word. She says that we are very good to her ; that her dear old 
careful boy is tiring himself out, she knows ; that my aunt has no sleep, 
yet is always wakeful, active, and kind. Sometimes, the little bird-like 



542 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

ladies come to see her ; and then we talk about our wedding-day, and all 
that happy time. 

What a strange rest and pause in my life there seems to be — and in 
all life, within doors and without — when I sit in the quiet, shaded, orderly, 
room, with the blue eyes of my child- wife turned towards me, and her little 
fingers twining round my hand ! Many and many an hour I sit thus ; but, 
of all those times, three times come the freshest on my mind. 

It is morning ; and Dora, made so trim by my aunt's hands, shews me 
how her pretty hair will curl upon the pillow yet, and how long and bright 
it is, and how she likes to have it loosely gathered in that net she wears, i 

" Not that I am vain of it, now, you mocking boy," she says, when I 
smile ; " but because you used to say you thought it so beautiful ; and 
because, when I first began to think about you, I used to peep in the 
glass, and wonder whether you would like very much to have a lock of it. 
Oh what a foolish fellow you were, Doady, when I gave you one ! " 

" That was on the day when you were painting the flowers I had given 
you, Dora, and when I told you how much in love I was." 

"Ah! but I didn't like to tell you'' says Dora, " 'then, how I had 
cried over them, because I believed you really liked me ! When I can 
run about again as I used to do, Doady, let us go and see those places 
where we were such a silly couple, shall we ? And take some of the old 
walks ? And not forget poor papa ? " 

" Yes, we will, and have some happy days. So you must make haste 
to get well, my dear." 

" Oh, I shall soon do that ! I am so much better, you don't know ! " 

It is evening ; and I sit in the same chair, by the same bed, with the 
same face turned towards me. We have been silent, and there is a smile 
upon her face. I have ceased to carry my light burden up and down 
stairs now. She lies here all the day. 

" Doady ! " 

" My dear Dora ! " 

" You won't think what I am going to say, unreasonable, after what 
you told me, such a little while ago, of Mr. Wickfield's not being well ? I 
want to see Agnes. Very much I want to see her." 

" I will write to her, my dear." 

"Will you?" 

" Directly." 

" What a good, kind boy ! Doady, take me on your arm. Indeed, my 
dear, it 's not a whim. It 's not a foolish fancy. I want, very much 
indeed, to see her ! " 

" I am certain of it. I have only to tell her so, and she is sure to come." 

" You are very lonely when you go down stairs, now?" Dora whispers, 
with her arm about my neck. 

" How can I be otherwise, my own love, when I see your empty chair ? " 

" My empty chair ! " She clings to me for a little while, in silence. 
" And you really miss me, Doady ? " looking up, and brightly smiling. 
" Even poor, giddy, stupid me?" 

" My heart, who is there upon earth that I could miss so much ? " 

" Oh, husband ! I am so glad, yet so sorry ! " creeping closer to me, 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 543 

and folding me in both her arms. She laughs, and sobs, and then is quiet, 
and quite happy. 

" Quite ! " she says. " Only give Agnes my dear love, and tell her 
that I want very, very, much to see her ; and I have nothing left to wish for." 

" Except to get well again, Dora." 

" Ah, Doady ! Sometimes I think — you know I always was a silly 
little thing ! — that that will never be ! " 

" Don't say so, Dora ! Dearest love, don't think so ! " 

" I won't, if I can help it, Doady. But I am very happy ; though my 
dear boy is so lonely by himself, before his child-wife's empty chair ! " 

It is night ; and I am with her still. Agnes has arrived ; has been 
among us, for a whole day and an evening. She, my aunt, and I, have 
sat with Dora since the morning, all together. We have not talked much, 
but Dora has been perfectly contented and cheerful. We are now alone. 

Do I know, now, that my child-wife will soon leave me ? They have 
told me so ; they have told me nothing new to my thoughts ; but I am 
far from sure that I have taken that truth to heart. I cannot master it. 
I have withdrawn by myself, many times to-day, to weep. I have re- 
membered Who wept for a parting between the living and the dead. I 
have bethought me of all that gracious and compassionate history. I 
have tried to resign myself, and to console myself; and that, I hope, I may 
have done imperfectly ; but what I cannot firmly settle in my mind is, 
that the end will absolutely come. I hold her hand in mine, I hold her 
heart in mine, I see her love for me, alive in all its strength. I cannot 
shut out a pale lingering shadow of belief that she will be spared. 

" I am going to speak to you, Doady. I am going to say something 
I have often thought of saying, lately. You won't mind ? " with a gentle 
look. 

" Mind, my darling ? " 

" Because I don't know what you will think, or what you may have 
thought sometimes. Perhaps you have often thought the same. Doady, 
dear, I am afraid I was too young." 

I lay my face upon the pillow by her, and she looks into my eyes, and 
speaks very softly. Gradually, as she goes on, I feel, with a stricken heart, 
that she is speaking of herself as past. 

"lam afraid, dear, I was too young. I don't mean in years only, but 
in experience, and thoughts, and everything. I was such a silly little 
creature ! I am afraid it would have been better, if we had only loved 
each other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it. I have begun to think I 
was not fit to be a wife." 

I try to stay my tears, and to reply, " Oh, Dora, love, as fit as I to be 
a husband ! " 

" I don't know," with the old shake of her curls. " Perhaps ! But, if 
I had been more fit to be married, I might have made you more so, too. 
Besides, you are very clever, and I never was." 

" We have been very happy, my sweet Dora." 

" I was very happy, very. But, as years went on, my dear boy would 
have wearied of his child-wife. She would have been less and less a com- 
panion for him. He would have been more and more sensible of what was 
wanting in his home. She wouldn't have improved. It is better as itis." 



544 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Oh, Dora, dearest, dearest, do not speak to me so. Every word seems 
a reproacli ! " 

" No, not a syllable ! " she answers, kissing me. " Oh, my dear, you 
never deserved it, and I loved you far too well, to say a reproachful word to 
you, in earnest — it was all the merit I had, except being pretty — or you 
thought me so. Is it lonely down-stairs, Doady ? " 

" Very ! Very ! " 

" Don't cry ! Is my chair there ? " 

" In its old place." 

" Oh, how my poor boy cries ! Hush, hush ! Now, make me one 
promise. I want to speak to Agnes. When you go down-stairs, tell 
Agnes so, and send her up to me ; and while I speak to her, let no one 
come — not even aunt. I want to speak to Agnes by herself. I want to 
speak to Agnes, quite alone." 

I promise that she shall, immediately ; but I cannot leave her, for my 
grief. 

" I said that it was better as it is ! " she whispers, as she holds me in 
her arms. " Oh, Doady, after more years, you never could have loved your 
child-wife better than you do ; and, after more years, she would so have tried 
and disappointed you, that you might not have been able to love her half 
so well ! I know I was too young and foolish. It is much better as it is ! " 

Agnes is down-stairs, when I go into the parlor ; and I give her the 
message. She disappears, leaving me alone with Jip. 

His Chinese house is by the fire ; and he lies within it, on his bed of 
flannel, querulously trying to sleep. The bright moon is high and clear. 
As I look out on the night, my tears fall fast, and my undisciplined heart 
is chastened heavily — heavily. 

I sit down by the fire, thinking with a blind remorse of all those secret 
feelings I have nourished since my marriage. I think of every little trifle 
between me and Dora, and feel the truth, that trifles make the sum of life. 
Ever rising from the sea of my remembrance, is the image of the dear child 
as I knew her first, graced by my young love, and by her own, with every 
fascination wherein such love is rich. Would it, indeed, have been better 
if we had loved each other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it ? Undis- 
ciplined heart, reply ! 

How the time wears, I know not ; until I am recalled by my child-wife's 
old companion. More restless than he was, he crawls out of his house, 
and looks at me, and wanders to the door, and whines to go up-stairs. 

" Not to-night, Jip ! Not to-night ! " 

He comes very slowly back to me, licks my hand, and lifts his dim eyes 
to my face. 

" O, Jip ! It may be, never again ! " 

He lies down at my feet, stretches himself out as if to sleep, and with 
a plaintive cry, is dead. 

" Agnes ! Look, look, here ! " 

— That face, so full of pity and of grief, that rain of tears, that awful 
mute appeal to me, that solemn hand upraised towards Heaven ! 

"Agnes?" 

It is over. Darkness comes before my eyes ; and, for a time, all things 
are blotted out of my remembrance. 




o 



■A 



/ 3??7?/idy7 / ite??Z' 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



545 



CHAPTER LIV. 



ME. MICAWBEU S TRANSACTIONS. 



This is not the time at which I am to enter on the state of my mind 
beneath its load of sorrow. I came to think that the Future was walled 
up before me, that the energy and action of my life were at an end, that I 
never could find any refuge but in the grave. I came to think so, I say, 
but not in the first shock of my grief. It slowly grew to that. If the 
events I go on to relate, had not thickened around me, in the beginning to 
confuse, and in the end to augment, my affliction, it is possible, (though I 
think not probable), that I might have fallen at once into this condition. 
As it was, an interval occurred before I fully knew my own distress ; an 
interval, in which I even supposed that its sharpest pangs were past ; and 
when my mind could soothe itself by resting on all that was most innocent 
and beautiful, in the tender story that was closed for ever. 

When it was first proposed that I should go abroad, or how it came to 
be agreed among us that I was to seek the restoration of my peace in 
change and travel, I do not, even now, distinctly know. The spirit of 
Agnes so pervaded all we thought, and said, and did, in that time of sorrow, 
that I assume I may refer the project to her influence. But her influence 
was so quiet that I know no more. 

And now, indeed, I began to think that in my old association of her 
with the stained-glass window in the church, a prophetic foreshadowing of 
what she would be to me, in the calamity that was to happen in the full- 
ness of time, had found a way into my mind. In all that sorrow, from the 
moment, never to be forgotten, when she stood before me with her upraised 
hand, she was like a sacred presence in my lonely house. When the 
Angel of Death alighted there, my child-wife fell asleep — they told me so 
when I could bear to hear it — on her bosom, with a smile. From my 
swoon, I first awoke to a consciousness of her compassionate tears, her 
words of hope and peace, her gentle face bending down as from a 
purer region nearer Heaven, over my undisciplined heart, and softening 
its pain. 

Let me go on. 

I was to go abroad. That seemed to have been determined among us 
from the first. The ground now covering all that could perish of my 
departed wife, I waited only for what Mr. Micawber called the "final 
pulverisation of Heep," and for the departure of the emigrants. 

At the request of Traddles, most affectionate and. devoted of friends 
in my trouble, we returned to Canterbury : I mean my aunt, Agnes, and I. 
We proceeded by appointment straight to Mr. Micawber's house ; where, 
and at Mr. Wickfield's, my friend had been labouring ever since our 
explosive meeting. W~hen poor Mrs. Micawber saw me come in, in my black 
clothes, she was sensibly affected. There was a great deal of good in 

IS N 



546 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Mrs. Micawber's heart, which had not been dunned out of it in all those 
many years. 

" Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber," was my aunt's first salutation after 
we were seated. " Pray, have you thought about that emigration proposal 
of mine ? " 

" My dear madam," returned Mr. Micawber, " perhaps I cannot better 
express the conclusion at which Mrs. Micawber, your humble servant, and 
I may add our children, have jointly and severally arrived, than by bor- 
rowing the language of an illustrious poet, to reply that our Boat is on 
the shore, and our Bark is on the sea." 

" That 's right/' said my aunt. " I augur all sorts of good from your 
sensible decision." 

" Madam, you do us a great deal of honor," he rejoined. He then 
referred to a memorandum. " With respect to the pecuniary assistance 
enabling us to launch our frail canoe on the ocean of enterprise, I have 
reconsidered that important business-point; and would beg to propose my 
notes of hand — drawn, it is needless to stipulate, on stamps of the amounts 
respectively required by the various Acts of Parliament applying to such 
securities — at eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty months. The proposi- 
tion I originally submitted, was twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four; but 
I am apprehensive that such an arrangement might not allow sufficient 
time for the requisite amount of — Something — to turn .up. We might 
not," said Mr. Micawber, looking round the room as if it represented 
several hundred acres of highly-cultivated land, " on the first responsibility 
becoming due, have been successful in our harvest, or we might not have 
got our harvest in. Labor, . I believe, is sometimes difficult to obtain in 
that portion of our colonial possessions where it will be our lot to combat 
with the teeming soil." 

"Arrange it in any way you please, sir," said my aunt. 

" Madam," he replied, " Mrs. Micawber and myself are deeply sensible 
of the very considerate kindness of our friends and patrons. What I wish 
is, to be perfectly business-like, and perfectly punctual. Turning over, as 
we are about to turn over, an entirely new leaf; and falling back, as we are 
now in the act of falling back, for a Spring of no common magnitude ; it 
is important to my sense of self-respect, besides being an example to my 
son, that these arrangements should be concluded as between man and 
man." 

I don't know that Mr. Micawber attached any meaning to this last 
phrase ; I don't know that anybody ever does, or did ; but he appeared to 
relish it uncommonly, and repeated, with an impressive cough, " as between 
man and man."" 

"I propose," said Mr. Micawber, "Bills— a convenience to the mer- 
cantile world, for which, I believe, we are originally indebted to the 
Jews, who appear to me to have had a devilish deal too much to do with 
them ever since — because they are negotiable. But if a Bond, or any 
other description of security, would be preferred, I should be happy to 
execute any such. instrument. As between man and man." 

My aunt observed, that in a case where both parties were willing to 
agree to any tiling, she took it for granted there would be no difficulty 
in settling this point. Mr. Micawber was of her opinion. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



547 



" In reference to our domestic preparations, madam," said Mr. Micaw- 
ber, with some pride, "for meeting the destiny to which we are now 
understood to be. self-devoted, I beg to report. them. My eldest daughter 
attends at five every morning in a neighbouring establishment, to .acquire 
the process — if process it maybe called — of milking, cows. My younger 
children are instructed to observe, as closely: as circumstances will permit, 
the habits of the ;pigs and poultry maintained in the poorer parts. of this 
city : a pursuit from which they have, on two occasions, been "brought 
home, within mn inch of being rum over. I have imyself directed some 
attention, during" the. past week, to the art of baking ; and my son Wilkins 
has issued forth with a .walking-stick and driven cattle, when permitted, by 
the rugged hirelings who had them in charge, to render ..any voluntary 
service in that direction — which I regret to say, for the credit of our 
nature, was not. often; he. being generally warned, with imprecations, to 
desist." 

" AH very right indeed," said my aunt; encouragingly. "Mrs. Micawber 
has been busy, too, I -have no doubt." 

"■My dear madam," returned Mrs. Micawber, with her business-like 
air, " I am free to confess, that I have not been actively engaged in pur- 
suits immediately connected with : cultivation or with stock, though well 
aware that both will claim my attention on a foreign shore. Such oppor- 
tunities as I have been enabled to alienate from my domestic duties, I 
have devoted to corresponding at some length with my family. For I 
own it seems to ine,:my dear Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, who 
always fell back on me, I suppose from old habit, to whomsoever else 
she might address her discourse at starting, " that the time is come when 
the past; should be buried in oblivion; when my family should take Mr. 
Micawber by the hand, and Mr. Micawber should take;my family by the 
hand; when the lion should lie down with the lamb, and my; family be on 
terms with Mr.. Micawber." 

I said I thought- so too. 

"This, at least, is the light, my dear Mr. Copperfield," pursued Mrs. 
Micawber, "in which / view the subject. When I lived :at home with 
my papa and mama, my papa was accustomed to ask, when any point was 
under discussion in our limited circle, ';In what, light does my Emma 
view the subject ? ' That my papa was too partial, I know ; still, on such 
a point as the frigid coldness which has ever subsisted' beiweemMr. Micaw- 
ber and my family, I necessarily have formed an opinion, delusive though 
it;may be." 

" No doubt. Of course you have, ma'am," said my aunt. 

" Precisely so," assented Mrs. Micawber. " Now, I niay.be wrong in 
my conclusions ; it is very likely that Lam ; but my.individual impression 
is, that the gulf between my family and Mr. Micawber may be traced to 
an apprehension, on the part of my family, that. Mr. Micawber would 
require pecuniary accommodation. I cannot help thinking," i said Mrs. 
Micawber, with an air of deep sagacity, " that there are members of my 
family who have been apprehensive that .Mr. : Micawber would solicit them 
for their names. — I do not mean to be conferred in Baptism upon our 
children, but to be inscribed on Bills of Exchange, and negotiated in the 
Money Market." 

N N 2 



54 S THE PERSONAL HISTOHY A>'D EXPERIENCE 

The look of penetration with which Mrs. Micawber announced tins dis- 
covery, as if no one had ever thought of it before, seemed rather to 
astonish my aunt ; who abruptly replied, " TVell, ma'am, upon the whole, 
I shouldn't wonder if you were right ! " 

" Mr. Micawber being now on the eve of casting off the pecuniary 
shackles that hare so long enthralled him," said Mrs. Micawber, " and of 
commencing a new career in a country where there is sufficient range for 
Ids abilities, — which, in my opinion, is exceedingly important ; Mr. Micaw- 
ber's abilities peculiarly requiring space, — it seems to me that my family 
should signalise the occasion by coming forward. T\Tiat I could wish to 
see, would be a meeting between Mr. Micawber and my family at a 
festive entertainment, to be given at my family's expence ; where Mr. 
Micawber's health and prosperity being proposed, by some leading member 
of my family, Mr. Micawber might have an opportunity of developing 
his views." 

" My dear," said Mr. Micawber, with some heat, "it may be better for 
me to state distinctly, at once, that if I were to develop my views to that 
assembled group, they would possibly be found of an offensive nature : 
my impression being that your family are, in the aggregate, impertinent 
Snobs ; and, in detail, unmitigated Ruffians." 

" Micawber," said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, "no ! You have 
never understood them, and they have never understood you." 

Mr. Micawber coughed. 

" They have never understood you, Micawber," said his wife. " They 
may be incapable of it. If so, that is their misfortune. I can pity their 
misfortune." 

" I am extremely sorry, my dear Emma," said Mr. Micawber, relenting, 
"to have been betrayed into any expressions that might, even remotely, 
have the appearance of being strong expressions. All I would say, is, 
that I can go abroad without your family coming forward to favor me, — in 
short, with a parting Shove of their cold shoulders ; and that, upon the 
whole, I would rather leave England with such impetus as I possess, than 
derive any acceleration of it from that quarter. At the same time, my 
dear, if they should condescend to reply to your communications — which 
our joint experience renders most improbable — far be it from me to be a 
barrier to your wishes." 

The matter being thus amicably settled, Mr. Micawber gave Mrs. Micaw- 
ber his arm, and, glancing at the heap of books and papers lying before 
Traddles on the table, said they would leave us to ourselves ; which they 
ceremoniously did. 

"My dear Copperfield," said Traddles, leaning back in his chair when 
they were gone, and looking at me with an affection that made his eyes 
red, and his hair all kinds of shapes, " I don't make any excuse for 
troubling you with business, because I know you are deeply interested 
in it, and it may divert your thoughts. My dear boy, I hope you are 
not worn out ? " 

"I am quite myself," said I, after a pause. "We have more cause 
to think of mv aunt than of anv one. You know how much she has 
done." 

" Surely, surely," answered Traddles. " "Who can forget it ! " 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



549 



" But even that is not all," said I. " During the last fortnight, some 
new trouble has vexed her ; and she has been in and out of London every- 
day. Several times she has gone out early, and been absent until evening. 
Last night, Traddles, with this journey before her, it was almost midnight 
before she came home. You know what her consideration for others is. 
She will not tell me what has happened to distress her." 

My aunt, very pale, and with deep lines in her face, sat immovable 
until I had finished ; when some stray tears found their way to her cheeks, 
and she put her hand on mine. 

" It 's nothing, Trot ; it 's nothing. There will be no more of it. You 
shall know by and by. Now Agnes, my dear, let us attend to these 
affairs." 

" I must do Mr. Micawber the justice to say," Traddles began, " that 
although he would appear not to have worked to any good account for 
himself, he is a most untiring man when he works for other people. I 
never saAv such a fellow. If he always goes on in the same way, he 
must be, virtually, about two hundred years old, at present. The heat 
into which he has been continually putting himself; and the distracted and 
impetuous manner in which he has been diving, day and night, among 
papers and books ; to say nothing of the immense number of letters he 
has written me between this house and Mr. Wickfield's, and often 
across the table when he has been sitting opposite, and might much more 
easily have spoken; is quite extraordinary." 

" Letters ! " cried my aunt. " I believe he dreams in letters ! " 

" There 's Mr. Dick, too," said Traddles, " has been doing wonders ! 
As soon as he was released from overlooking Uriah Heep, whom he kept 
in such charge as I never saw exceeded, he began to devote himself to 
Mr. Wickfield. And really his anxiety to be of use in the investigations 
we have been making, and his real usefulness in extracting, and copying, 
and fetching, and carrying, have been quite stimulating to us." 

" Dick is a very remarkable man," exclaimed my aunt ; " and I always 
said he was. Trot, you know it ! " 

"I am happy to say, Miss Wickfield," pursued Traddles, at once with great 
delicacy and with great earnestnesss, " that in your absence Mr. Wickfield 
has considerably improved. Believed of the incubus that had fastened 
upon him for so long a time, and of the dreadful apprehensions under 
which he had lived, he is hardly the same person. At times, even 
his impaired power of concentrating his memory and attention on par- 
ticular points of business, has recovered itself very much ; and he has been 
able to assist us in making some things clear, that we should have found 
very difficult indeed, if not hopeless, without him. But, what I have 
to do is to come to results; which are short enough; not to gossip 
on all the hopeful circumstances I have observed, or I shall never have 
done." 

His natural manner and agreeable simplicity made it transparent that 
he said this to put us in good heart, and to enable Agnes to hear her 
father mentioned with greater confidence ; but it was not the less pleasant 
for that. 

" Now, let me see," said Traddles, looking among the papers on the 
table. " Having counted our funds, and reduced to order a great mass 



550 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

of -unintentional confusion in the first place, and of wilful confusion and 
falsification in the second, we take it to be clear that Mr. Wickfield might 
now wind up bis business, and his agency-trust, and exhibit no deficiency 
or defalcation whatever." 

" Oh, thank Heaven ! " cried Agnes, fervently. 

" But," said Traddles, "the surplus that would be left as his means 
of support — and I suppose the house to be sold, even in saying this — 
would be so small, not exceeding in all probability some hundreds of 
pounds, that perhaps, Miss Wickfield, it would be best to consider whether 
he might not retain his agency of the estate to which he has so long been 
receiver. His friends might advise him, you know; now heis free. You 
yourself, Miss Wickfield — Copperfield — I — " 

" I have considered it, Trotwood,"' said Agnes, looking to me, "and 
I feel that it ought not to be, and must not be ; even on the recommenda- 
tion- of a friend to whom I am so grateful, and owe so much." 

" I will not say that I recommend it," observed Traddles. " I think 
it right "to suggest it. No more." 

" I am happy to hear you say so," answered Agnes, steadily, "for it 
gives me hope, almost assurance, that we think alike. Dear 'Mr. Traddles 
and dear Trotwood, papa once free with honor, what could I wish for! 
I have always aspired, if I could have released him from the toils- in winch 
he was held, to render back some little portion of the love and care I owe 
him, and to devote my life to him. It has been, for years, the utmost 
height of my hopes. To take our future on myself, will be the next 
great happiness — the next to his release from all trust and responsibility 
— that I can know:" 

" Have you thought how, Agnes ? " 

"Oiten ! I am not afraid, dear Trotwood. I am certain of success.- 
So many people know me here, and think kindly of me, that I am certain. 
Don't mistrust me. Our wants are not many. If I rent the dear old 
house, and keep a school, I shall be useful and happy." 

The calm fervor of her cheerful voice brought back so vividly, first the 
dear old house itself, and then my solitary home, that my 'heart was too 
full for speech. Traddles pretended for a little while to be busily looking 
among the papers. 

"Next, Miss Trotwood," said Traddles, "that property of yours." 

"Well, sir," sighed my aunt. "x\ll I have got to say about it, is, 
that if it 's gone, I can bear it ; and if it 's not gone, I shall.be glad to get 
it back." 

"It was originally, I think, eight thousand pounds, Consols?" said 
Traddles. 

"Eight ! "' replied my aunt. 

"T can^t account for more than five," said' Traddles, with an ah of 
perplexity. 

" — thousand, do you mean?" inquired my aunt, with uncommon 
composure, " or pounds ? " 

" Five thousand pounds,"' said Traddles. 

" It was all there was," returned my aunt. " I sold three, myself. 
One, I paid for your articles, Trot, my dear ; and the other two 1 have by 
me. When I lost the rest, I thought it wise to say nothing about that 



Oi 1 DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 



551 



sum, but to: keep it secretly for a rainy day. I wanted to see how you would 
come out of the: trial, Trot ; and you came: out nobly— persevering, self- 
reliant, self-denying :! So did, Dick; Don't speak, to me, for I find my 
nerves a little shaken ! " 

Nobody would have thought so, to see heir sitting upright, with her 
arms folded; but she had wonderful self-command. 

"Then I am delighted to say," cried Traddles, beaming with joy, "that 
we have recovered the whole money ! " 

"Don't congratulate me, anybody!" exclaimed, my aunt. " How so, 
sir?" 

n You believed it had been misappropriated by Mr. Wickfield ? " said 
Traddles. 

" Of course I did," said my aunt, "and was therefore, easily silenced. 
Agnes, not a word! "' 

"And indeed," said. Traddles, " it was. sold, by virtue of the power of 
management he held from you; but I needn't say by- whom sold,. or on 
whose actual signature. It was afterwards pretended to Mr. Wickfield; by 
that rascal, — and proved, too, by figures, — that he had possessed himself of 
the money (on general instructions, lie said) to keep other deficiencies and 
difficulties from the light.. Mr. Wickfield, being so weak and, helpless in 
his hands -as to pay you, afterwards, several, sums of interest on a pretended 
principal which he knew did not. exist, made- himself, unhappily, a party 
to the fraud." 

"And at last, took the. blame upon himself," added my aunt;: "and 
wrote me a mad letter, charging himself with robbery, and wrong unheard 
of. Upon which I paid him a visit early one morning, called, for a candle, 
burnt the letter, and told him, if he ever could, right me and himself, to do 
it; and if he couldn't, to keep his own counsel for his: daughter's sake. — 
If anybody speaks to me; I '11, leave the house ! " , 

We all remained quiet ; Agnes covering her face. 

" Well, my dear friend," , said my aunt, after a pause, " and you have 
really extorted the. money back from him ? " 

"Why, the fact is," returned Traddles, "Mr. Micawberhad so com- 
pletely hemmed him in, and was. always ready with so many new. points 
if an old one failed, that he could not escape from us..; A most remark- 
able circumstance is, that I really don't think he. grasped this sum even 
so much for the gratification of his avarice, which was inordinate, as in 
the hatred he felt for Copperfield. He: said so to me, plainly. He said 
he would even have spent as much, to baulk or injure Copperfield." 

" Ha ! " said my aunt, knitting, her brows thoughtfully, and glancing at 
And what's become of him? " 
I don't know. ,He left here,'" said Traddles, "with his mother, who 
had been clamouring, and beseeching, and disclosing, the whole time. 
They went away by one of the London night coaches, and I know 
no more about him ; except that his malevolence to me at parting 
was audacious. He seemed to consider, himself hardly less indebted 
to me, than to Mr. Micawber; which. I consider (as I told him) quite a 
compliment." 

" Do you suppose he has any money, Traddles ? " I asked. 

" Oh dear, yes, I should think so," he replied, shaking his head, 



Agnes 



552 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

seriously. <c I should say lie must have pocketed a good deal, in one way or 
other. But, I think you would find, Copperfield, if you had an oppor- 
tunity of observing his course, that money would never keep that man 
out of mischief. He is such an incarnate hypocrite, that whatever object 
he pursues, he must pursue crookedly. It 's his only compensation for the 
outward restraints he puts upon himself. Always creeping along the 
ground to some small end or other, he will always magnify every object in 
the way ; and consequently will hate and suspect every body that comes, in 
the most innocent manner, between him and it. So, the crooked courses 
will become crookeder, at any moment, for the least reason, or for none. 
It 's only necessary to consider his history here," said Trad dies, " to 
know that." 

" He 's a monster of meanness ! " said my aunt. 

" Really I don't know about that," observed Traddles thoughtfully. 
" Many people can be very mean, when they give their minds to it." 

" And now, touching Mr. Micawber," said my aunt. 

" Well, really," said Traddles, cheerfully, " I must, once more, give 
Mr. Micawber high praise. But for his having been so patient and per- 
severing for so long a time, we never could have hoped to do anything 
worth speaking of. And I think we ought to consider that Mr. Micawber 
did right, for right's sake, when we reflect what terms he might have made 
with Uriah Heep himself, for his silence." 

" I think so too," said I. 

" Now, what would you give him ? " inquired my aunt. 

" Oh ! Before you come to that," said Traddles, a little disconcerted, 
" I am afraid I thought it discreet to omit (not being able to carry every- 
thing before me) two points, in making this lawless adjustment — for it 5 s 
perfectly lawless from beginning to end — of a difficult affair. Those 
I. 0. XL's, and so forth, which Mr. Micawber gave him for the advances 
he had—" 

" Well ! They must be paid," said my aunt. 

" Yes, but I don't know when they may be proceeded on, or where they 
are," rejoined Traddles, opening his eyes ; " and I anticipate, that, between 
this time and his departure, Mr. Micawber will be constantly arrested, or 
taken in execution." 

" Then he must be constantly set free again, and taken out of execution," 
said my aunt. " What 's the amount altogether ? " 

" Why, Mr. Micawber has entered the transactions — he calls them 
transactions — with great form, in a book," rejoined Traddles, smiling ; 
" and he makes the amount a hundred and three pounds, five." 

" Now, what shall we give him, that sum included ? " said my aunt. 
" Agnes, my dear, you and I can talk about division of it afterwards. 
What should it be ? Five hundred pounds? " 

Upon this, Traddles and I both struck in at once. We both recom- 
mended a small sum in money, and the payment, without stipulation 
to Mr. Micawber, of the Uriah claims as they came in. We proposed 
that the family should have their passage and their outfit, and a 
hundred pounds ; and that Mr. Micawber's arrangement for the repay- 
ment of the advances should be gravely entered into, as it might be 
wholesome for him to suppose himself under that responsibility. To this, 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



553 



I added the suggestion, that I should give some explanation of his 
character and history to Mr. Peggotty, who I knew could be relied on ; 
and that to Mr. Peggotty should be quietly entrusted the discretion of ad- 
vancing another hundred. I further proposed to interest Mr. Micawber in 
Mr. Peggotty, by confiding so much of Mr. Peggotty's story to him as I 
might feel justified in relating, or might think expedient ; and to endeavour 
to bring each of them to bear upon the other, for the common advantage. 
We all entered warmly into these views ; and I may mention at once, that 
the principals themselves did so, shortly afterwards, with perfect good will 
and harmony. 

Seeing that Traddles now glanced anxiously at my aunt again, I 
reminded him of the second and last point to which he had adverted. 

" You and your aunt will excuse me, Copperfield, if I touch upon a 
painful theme, as I greatly fear I shall," said Traddles, hesitating ; " but 
I think it necessary to bring it to your recollection. On the day of Mr. 
Micawber's memorable denunciation, a threatening allusion was made by 
Uriah Heep to your aunt's — husband." 

My aunt, retaining her stiff position, and apparent composure, assented 
with a nod. 

" Perhaps," observed Traddles, "it was mere purposeless impertinence?" 

"No," returned my aunt. 

"There was — pardon me — really such a person, and at all in his 
power ? " hinted Traddles. 

" Yes, my good friend," said my aunt. 

Traddles, with a perceptible lengthening of his face, explained that he 
had not been able to approach this subject ; that it had shared the fate of 
Mr. Micawber's liabilities, in not being comprehended in the terms he had 
made ; that we were no longer of any authority with Uriah Heep ; and 
that if he could do us, or any of us, any injury or annoyance, no doubt 
he would. 

My aunt remained quiet ; until again some stray tears found their way 
to her cheeks. 

" You are quite right," she said. " It was very thoughtful to 
mention it." 

"Can I — or Copperfield — do anything?" asked Traddles, gently. 

" Nothing," said my aunt. " I thank you many times. Trot, my 
dear, a vain threat ! Let us have Mr. and Mrs. Micawber back. And 
don't any of you speak to me ! " With that, she smoothed her dress, and 
sat, with her upright carriage, looking at the door. 

" Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber ! " said my aunt, when they entered. 
" We have been discussing your emigration, with many apologies to you 
for keeping you out of the room so long ; and I '11 tell you what arrange- 
ments we propose." 

These she explained, to the unbounded satisfaction of the family, — 
children and all being then present, — and so much to the awakening of 
Mr. Micawber's punctual habits in the opening stage of all bill trans- 
actions, that he could not be dissuaded from immediately rushing out, in 
the highest spirits, to buy the stamps for his notes of hand. But, his joy 
received a sudden check ; for within five minutes, he returned in the custody 
of a sheriff's officer, informing us, in a flood of tears, that all was lost. 



554 THE PEP?.OXAL HISTGEY AND EXPERIENCE 

We, being quite prepared for this event, whicli was of course a proceed- 
ing of Uriah Heep's, soon paid the money ; . and in five minutes more 
Mr. Micawber was seated at the table, filling, up the stamps with an ex- 
pression of perfect joy, which only that congenial employment, or the 
making, of punch, could impart in full completeness to his shining 
face. To see him at work on the stamps, with the relish, of an artist, 
touching, them like -pictures, looking at them sideways, taking weighty 
notes of dates and amounts in his pocket-book, and contemplating 
them when finished, with a high sense of their precious value, was . a 
sight indeed. 

" Now, the best thing you can do, sir, if you '11 allow me to advise 
you," said my aunt, after silently observing him, " is to abjure that occu- 
pation for evermore." 

"Madam," replied Mr. Micawber, "it is my intention to register such 
a vow on the virgin page of the future. Mrs. Micawber will attest it. 
I trust," said Mr. Micawber, solemnly, " that my son Wilkins will ever 
bear in mind, that he had infinitely better put his fist in the fire, than use 
it to handle the serpents that have poisoned the life-blood of his unhappy 
parent ! " Deeply affected, and changed in a moment to the image of 
despair, Mr. Micawber regarded the serpents with a look of gloomy 
abhorrence (in which his late admiration of them was mot quite subdued), 
folded them up, and put them in his pocket. 

This closed the proceedings of the evening. Vie were weary with 
sorrow and fatigue, and my aunt, and I were to return to London on the 
morrow. It was arranged that the Micawber s should follow us, after 
effecting a sale of their goods to a broker; that Mr. Wickfield's affairs 
should be brought to a settlement, with all convenient speed, under 
the direction of Traddles; and that Agnes should also come to 
London, pending those arrangements. We passed the night, at the old 
house, which, freed from the presence of the Heeps, seemed purged 
of a disease ; and I lay in my old room, like a shipwrecked wanderer 
come home. 

We went back next day to my aunt's house — not to mine ; and when 
she and I sat alone, as of old, before going to bed, she said : 

"Trot, do you really wish to know what I have had upon my mind 
lately ? " 

" Indeed I do, aunt. If there' ever was a time when I felt unwilling 
that you should have a sorrow or anxiety which I. could not share, it is 
now." 

" You have had sorrow enough, child," said my aunt, affectionately, 
"without the addition of my little miseries. I could have no other 
motive, Trot, in keeping anything from, you." 

" I know that well,"'said I. " But tell me now." 

"Would you ride with me a little way to-morrow morning? " asked 
my aunt. 
'"Of course." 

"At nine," said she.; " L'll tell you then^ my dear." 

At nine, accordingly, we went out in a little chariot, and drove to 
London. We drove a long way through the streets, until we came to one 
of the large hospitals. Standing hard by the building was a plain hearse. 



OF'' DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



555 



The driver recognised my aunt, and, in obedience to a motion cf her hand 
at the window, drove slowly off ; we following. 

" You understand it now, Trot,"' said my aunt. " He is gone ! " 

" Did he die in the hospital ? " 

"Yes." 

She sat immovable beside me; but, again I saw the stray tears on , her 
face. 

"'He was there once before," said my aunt presently. "He was ailing 
a long time — a shattered, broken, man, these many years. When he knew 
his state in this last illness, he asked them to send for me. He was sorry 
then. Very sorry." 

"You went, I know, aunt." 

" I went. I was with him a good deal afterwards." 

" He died the night before we went to Canterbury ? " said I. 

My aunt nodded. " No one can harm him now," she said. " It was 
a vain threat." 

We drove away, out of town, to the churchyard at Hornsey. "Better 
here than in the streets," said my aunt. " He was born here." 

We alighted; and followed the plain coffin to a corner I remember 
well, where the service was read consigning it to the dust. 

" Six-and-thirty years 1 ago, this day, my dear," said my aunt, as we 
walked back to the chariot, " I was- married. God forgive us all ! "' 

We took our seats in silence; and so she sat beside me for a long time; 
holding my hand. At length she suddenly burst into tears, and said : 

"He was a fine-looking man when I 1 married him, Trot : — and he was 
sadly changed ! " 

It did not last long. After the relief ; of tears, she soon.became com- 
posed, and even cheerful. Her nerves were, a little shaken, she said, or 
she would not have given way to it. God forgive us all! 

So we rode back to her little cottage at Highgate, where we found the 
following short note, which had arrived by that morning's post from 
Mr. Micawber : 

"Canterbury, 

"Friday. 

"'My dear Madam, and Copperfield, 

"Thcfair land of promise lately looming on' the horizon 
is again enveloped in impenetrable mists, and for ever withdrawn from the 
eyes of a drifting" wretch whose Doom is sealed! 

"Another writ has been issued (in His Majesty's High' Court of 
King's Bench at Westminster), in another cause of Keep v. Micawber, 
and the defendant in that cause is the prey of the sheriff' havinglegal 
jurisdiction in this bailiwick. 

i Now 's- the day;, and now's the hour,, 
See the front of battle lower, 
See approach proud Edward's power — 

Chains and' slavery ! ,J 

" Consigned to 1 which, and to a speedy end (for. mental torture is not 
supportable beyond a certain point, and that point I feel. I have attained), 
my course is run. Bless you, bless you! Some future traveller; visiting, 



556 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

from motives of curiosity, not unmingied, let us hope, with sympathy, the 
place of confinement allotted to debtors in this city, may, and I trust will, 
Ponder, as he traces on its wall, inscribed with a rusty nail, 

" The obscure initials 

« W. M. 

"P.S. I re-open this to say that our common friend, Mr. Thomas 
Traddles (who has not yet left us, and is looking extremely well), has paid 
the debt and costs, in the noble name of Miss Trotwood ; and that myself 
and family are at the height of earthly bliss." 



CHAPTER LY. 

TEMPEST. 



I now approach an event in my life, so indelible, so awful, so bound by 
an infinite variety of ties to all that has preceded it, in these pages, that, 
from the beginning of my narrative, I have seen it growing larger and 
larger as I advanced, like a great tower in a plain, and throwing its 
fore-cast shadow even on the incidents of my childish days. 

Por years after it occurred, I dreamed of it often. I have started up 
so vividly impressed by it, that its fury has yet seemed raging in my 
quiet room, in the still night. I dream of it sometimes, though at 
lengthened and uncertain intervals, to this hour. I have an association 
between it and a stormy wind, or the lightest mention of a sea-shore, as 
strong as any of which my mind is conscious. As plainly as I behold what 
happened, I will try to write it down. I do not recal it, but see it done ; 
for it happens again before me. 

The time drawing on rapidly for the sailing of the emigrant-ship, my 
good old nurse (almost broken-hearted for me, when we first met) came 
up to London. I was constantly with her, and her brother, and the 
Micawbers (they being very much together) ; but Emily I never saw. 

One evening when the time was close at hand, I was alone with Peg- 
gotty and her brother. Our conversation turned on Ham. She described 
to us how tenderly he had taken leave of her, and how manfully and 
quietly he had borne himself. Most of all, of late, when she believed 
he was most tried. It was a subject of which the affectionate creature 
never tired ; and our interest in hearing the many examples which she, 
who was so much with him, had to relate, was equal to hers in relating 
them. 

My aunt and I were at that time vacating the two cottages at Highgate ; 
I intending to go abroad, and she to return to her house at Dover. We 
had a temporary lodging in Covent Garden. As I walked home to it, 
after this evening's conversation, reflecting on what had passed between 
Ham and myself when I was last at Yarmouth, I wavered in the original 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



557 



purpose I had formed, of leaving a letter for Emily when I should take 
leave of her uncle on board the ship, and thought it would be better to 
write to her now. She might desire, I thought, after receiving my com- 
munication, to send some parting word by me to her unhappy lover. I 
ought to give her the opportunity. 

I therefore sat down in my room, before going to bed, and wrote to 
her. I told her that I had seen him, and that he had requested me to 
tell her what I have already written in its place in these sheets. I faith- 
fully repeated it. I had no need to enlarge upon it, if I had had the 
right. Its deep fidelity and goodness were not to be adorned by me or 
any man. I left it out, to be sent round in the morning ; with a line to 
Mr. Peggotty, requesting him to give it to her ; and went to bed at 
daybreak. 

I was weaker than I knew then ; and, not falling asleep until the sun was 
up, lay late, and unrefreshed, next day. I was roused hj the silent presence 
of my aunt at my bedside. I felt it in my sleep, as I suppose we all do 
feel such things. 

" Trot, my dear," she said, when I opened my eyes, " I couldn't make 
up my mind to disturb you. Mr. Peggotty is here ; shall he come up ? " 

I replied yes, and he soon appeared. 

" Mas'r Davy," he said, when we had shaken hands, " I giv EmTy 
your letter, sir, and she writ this heer ; and begged of me fur to ask you 
to read it, and if you see no hurt in't, to be so kind as take charge 
on't." 

" Have you read it ? " said I. 

He nodded sorrowfully. I opened it, and read as follows : 

" I have got your message. Oh, what can I write, to thank you for your good 
and blessed kindness to me ! 

" I have put the words close to my heart. I shall keep them till I die. They 
are sharp thorns, but they are such comfort. I have prayed over them, oh, I 
have prayed so much. When I find what you are, and what uncle is, I think 
what God must be, and can cry to him. 

" Good bye for ever. Now, my dear, my friend, good bye for ever in this 
world. In another world, if I am forgiven, I may wake a child and come to you. 
All thanks and blessings. Farewell, evermore ! " 

This, blotted with tears, was the letter. 

" May I tell her as you doen't see no hurt in 't, and as you '11 be so 
kind as take charge on 't, Mas'r Davy ? " said Mr. Peggotty, when I had 
read it. 

" Unquestionably," said I — " but I am thinking — " 

" Yes, Mas'r Davy ? " 
_ " I am thinking," said I, " that I '11 go down again to Yarmouth. There 's 
time, and to spare, for me to go and come back before the ship sails. My 
mind is constantly running on him, in his solitude ; to put this letter of 
her writing in his hand at this time, and to enable you to tell her, in the 
moment of parting, that he has got it, will be a kindness to both of them. 
I solemnly accepted his commission, dear good fellow, and cannot dis- 
charge it too completely. The journey is nothing to me. I am restless, 
and shall be better in motion. I '11 go down to-night." 

Though he anxiously endeavoured to dissuade me, I saw that he was of 



558 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

my mind; and this, if I had required to be confirmed in my intention, 
would have had the effect. He went round to the coach-office, at my 
request, and took the box-seat for me on the mail. In the evening 1 
started, by that conveyance, down the road I had traversed under so many 
vicissitudes. 

" Don't you think that," I asked the coachman, in the first stage out 
of London, "a very remarkable sky ? I don't remember to have seen one 
like it." 

" Nor I— not equal to it," he replied. " That 's wind, sir. There 'II 
be mischief done at sea, I expect, before long." 

It was a murky confusion — here and there blotted with; a colour like 
the colour of the smoke from damp fuel — of flying clouds, tossed up into 
most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than there 
were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the earth, 
through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as if, in a 
dread ^disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her way and were 
frightened. There had been a wind all day ; and it was rising then, with 
an extraordinary great sound. In another hour it had much increased, 
and the sky was more overcast, and it blew hard. 

But, as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and densely over- 
spreading the whole sky, then very dark, it came on to blow, harder and 
harder. It still increased, until our horses could scarcely face the wind. 
Many times, in the dark part of the night (it was then late in September, 
when the nights were not short), the leaders turned about, or came to a 
dead stop ; and we were often in serious apprehension that the coach 
would be blown over. Sweeping gusts of rain came up before this storm, 
like showers of steel ; and, at those times, when there was any shelter of 
trees or lee walls to be got, we were fain to stop, in a sheer impossibility 
of continuing the struggle. 

When the day broke, it 'blew harder and harder. I had been in Yar- 
mouth when the seamen said it blew great guns, but I had nevenknown 
the like of this, or anything approaching to it. We came to Norwich — 
very late, having .had to fight every inch of ground since we were ten 
miles out of London ; and found a cluster of people in the market-place, 
who had risen from their beds in the night, fearful of falling chimneys. 
Some of these, congregating about the inn-yard while we changed horses, 
told us of great sheets of lead having been ripped off a high church-tower, 
and flung into. a bye street, which they then blocked up. Others had to 
tell of country people, coming in from neighbouring villages, who had 
seen great trees lying torn out of the earth, and whole rioks scattered 
about the roads and fields. Still, there was no abatement in the storm, 
but it blew harder. 

.As we struggled on, nearer and nearer i,o the sea, from which this 
mighty wund was blowing :dearl on shore, its force became more- and more 
terrific. Long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips, and 
showered salt :rain npon.us. The water was out, over miles: and miles of 
the flat country adjacent to Yarmouth; and every sheet and puddle lashed 
its banks, and had its stress of little breakers setting heavily towards us. 
When we came within, sight of the sea, the waves on the -horizon, caught 
at intervals above the rolling abyss, were like glimpses of another shore 



OP DAYID COPEERFIELD. 



559 



with towers and buildings. When at last we got into the town, the 
people came out to their doors, all aslant, and with streaming hair, 
making a wonder of the mail that had come through such a night. 

I put up at the old inn, and went down to look at the sea ; staggering 
along the street, which was strewn with sand and seaweed, and with flying 
blotches of sea-foam ; afraid of falling slates and tiles ; and holding by 
people I met, at angry corners. Coming near the beach, I saw, not only 
the boatmen, but half the people of the town, lurking behind buildings ; 
some, now and then braving the fury of the storm .to look away to sea, 
and blown sheer out of their course in trying. to get zigzag back. 

Joining these groups, I found bewailing women whose husbands were 
away in herring or oyster boats, which there was too much reason to 
think might have foundered before they could run in anywhere for safety. 
Grizzled old sailors were among the people, shaking their heads, as they 
looked from water to ; sky, .and muttering to one another ; ship-owners, 
excited and uneasy.; children, huddling together, and peering into older 
faces ; even stout mariners, disturbed and anxious, levelling their glasses 
at the sea from behind places of shelter, as if they were surveying an 
enemy. 

The tremendous sea itself, when I could find sufficient pause to look at 
it, in the agitation of the "blinding wind, the flying stones and sand, and 
the awful noise, confounded me. As the high watery walls came rolling in, 
and, at their highest, tumbled into surf, they looked as if the least would 
engulf the town. As the receding wave swept back with a hoarse roar, it 
seemed to scoop out deep caves in the beach, as if its purpose were to 
undermine the earth. When some white-headed billows thundered on, 
and dashed themselves to pieces before they reached the land, every frag- 
ment of the late whole seemed possessed by the full might of its wrath, 
rushing to be gathered to the composition of .another monster. Undulating 
hills were changed to valleys, undulating valleys (with a solitary storm-bird 
sometimes skimming through them) were lifted up to hills ; . masses of water 
shivered and. shook the beachiwith:a booming sound; every- shape tumul- 
tuously rolled on,. as soon as made, to change its shape and place, and beat 
another shape and place away; the ideal shore on the horizon, with its 
towers and buildings, rose and fell; the clouds flew fast and thick; I 
seemed to see a rending and upheaving of all nature. 

Not finding Ham among the people whom this memorable wind — for 
it is still remembered down there, as the greatest ever known to blow 
upon that coast— had brought together, I made .my way to his house. 
It was shut; and as no one answered to my knocking, I went, by back 
ways and bye-lanes, to the yard where he worked. I learned, there, that 
he had gone to Lowestoft, to meet some sudden exigency of sbip- 
repairing in which his skill was required ; but that he would be back 
to-morrow morning, in good time. 

I went back to the inn ; and when Iliad washed and dressed, and tried 
tO'sleep, but in vain, it was five o'clock in the afternoon. I had not sat 
five minutes by the coffee-room fire, when the waiter, coming to stir it, as 
an excuse for talking, told me that two colliers had gone down, with all 
hands, a few miles away ; and that some other ships had been seen laboring 
hard in the Eoads, and trying, in great distress, to keep off-shore. Mercy 



560 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

on them, and on all poor sailors, said he, if we had another night like 
the last ! 

I was very much depressed in spirits ; very solitary ; and felt an 
uneasiness in Ham's not being there, disproportionate to the occasion. 
I was seriously affected, without knowing how much, by late events; 
and my long exposure to the fierce wind had confused me. There was 
that jumble in my thoughts and recollections, that I had lost the clear 
arrangement of time and distance. Thus, if I had gone out into the town, 
I should not have been surprised, I think, to encounter some one who I 
knew must be then in London. So to speak, there was in these respects 
a curious inattention in my mind. Yet it was busy, too, with all the 
remembrances the place naturally awakened ; and they were particularly 
distinct and vivid. 

In this state, the waiter's dismal intelligence about the ships imme- 
diately connected itself, without any effort of my volition, with my uneasi- 
ness about Ham. I was persuaded that I had an apprehension of his 
returning from Lowestoft by sea, and being lost. This grew so strong 
with me, that I resolved to go back to the yard before I took my dinner, 
and ask the boat-builder if he thought his attempting to return by sea at 
all likely ? If he gave me the least reason to think so, I would go over 
to Lowestoft and prevent it by bringing him with me. 

I hastily ordered my dinner, and went back to the yard. I was none 
too soon ; for the boat-builder, with a lantern in his hand, was locking the 
yard-gate. He quite laughed, when I asked him the question, and said 
there was no fear ; no man in his senses, or out of them, would put off 
in such a gale of wind, least of all Ham Peggotty, who had been born to 
seafaring. 

So sensible of this, beforehand, that I had really felt ashamed of doing 
Avhat I was nevertheless impelled to do, I went back to the inn. If 
such a wind could rise, I think it was rising. The howl and roar, the 
rattling of the doors and windows, the rumbling in the chimneys, the 
apparent rocking of the very house that sheltered me, and the prodigious 
tumult of the sea, were more fearful than in the morning. But there 
was now a great darkness besides ; and that invested the storm with new 
terrors, real and fanciful. 

I could not eat, I could not sit still, I could not continue stedfast to 
anything. Something within me, faintly answering to the storm without, 
tossed up the depths of my memory, and made a tumult in them. Yet, 
in all the hurry of my thoughts, wild running with the thundering sea, 
— the storm, and my uneasiness regarding Ham, were always in the 
fore-ground. 

My dinner went away almost untasted, and I tried to refresh myself with 
a glass or two of wine. In vain. I fell into a dull slumber before the fire, 
without losing my consciousness, either of the uproar out of doors, or of 
the place in which I was. Both became overshadowed by a new and 
indefinable horror ; and when I awoke — or rather when I shook off the 
lethargy that bound me in my chair — my whole frame thrilled with 
objectless and unintelligible fear. 

I walked to and fro, tried to read an old gazetteer, listened to the 
awful noises : looked at faces, scenes, and figures in the fire. At length, 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 561 

the steady ticking of the undisturbed clock on the wall, tormented me to 
that degree that I resolved to go to bed. 

It was re-assuring, on such a night, to be told that some of the inn- 
servants had agreed together to sit up until morning. I went to bed, 
exceedingly weary and heavy ; but, on my lying down, all such sensations 
vanished, as if by magic, and I was broad awake, with every sense 
refined. 

For hours I lay there, listening to the wind and water; imagining, 
now, that I heard shrieks out at sea ; now, that I distinctly heard the 
firing of signal guns ; and now, the fall of houses in the town. I got up, 
several times, and looked out ; but could see nothing, except the reflection 
in the window-panes of the faint candle I had left burning, and of my 
own haggard face looking in at me from the black void. 

At length, my restlessness attained to such a pitch, that I hurried on 
my clothes, and went down stairs. In the large kitchen, where I dimly 
saw bacon and ropes of onions hanging from the beams, the watchers 
were clustered together, in various attitudes, about a table, purposely 
moved away from the great chimney, and brought near the door. A 
pretty girl, who had her ears stopped with her apron, and her eyes upon 
the door, screamed when I appeared, supposing me to be a spirit ; but the 
others had more presence of mind, and were glad of an addition to their 
company. One man, referring to the topic they had been discussing, 
asked me whether I thought the souls of the collier-crews who had gone 
down, were out in the storm ? 

I remained there, I dare say, two hours. Once, I opened the yard- 
gate, and looked into the empty street. The sand, the sea-weed, 
and the flakes of foam, were driving by ; and I was obliged to call for 
assistance before I could shut the gate again, and make it fast against 
the wind. 

There was a dark gloom in my solitary chamber, when I at length 
returned to it ; but I was tired now, and, getting into bed again, fell — off 
a tower and down a precipice — into the depths of sleep. I have an impres- 
sion that for a long time, though I dreamed of being elsewhere and in a 
variety of scenes, it was always blowing in my dream. At length, I lost 
that feeble hold upon reality, and was engaged with two dear friends, but 
who they were I don't know, at the siege of some town in a roar of 
cannonading. 

The thunder of the cannon was so loud and incessant, that I could not 
hear something I much desired to hear, until I made a great exertion 
and awoke. It was broad day — eight or nine o'clock ; the storm raging, in 
lieu of the batteries ; and some one knocking and calling at my door. 

" What is the matter? " I cried. 

"A wreck! Close by ! " 

I sprung out of bed, and asked what wreck ? 

" A schooner, from Spain or Portugal, laden with fruit and wine. Make 
haste, sir, if you want to see her ! It 's thought, down on the beach, 
she '11 go to pieces every moment." 

The excited voice went clamouring along the staircase ; and I wrapped 
myself in my clothes as quickly as I could, and ran into the street. 

Numbers of people were there before me, all running in one direction, 

o o 



562 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

to the beach. T ran the same way, outstripping a good many, and soon 
came facing the wild sea. 

The wind might by this time have lulled a little, though not more 
sensibly than if the cannonading I had dreamed of, had been diminished 
by the silencing of half-a-dozen guns out of hundreds. But, the sea, 
having upon it the additional agitation of the whole night, was infinitely 
more terrific than when I had seen it last. Every appearance it had then 
presented, bore the expression of being swelled; and the height to which 
the breakers rose, and, looking over one another, bore one another down, 
and rolled in, in interminable hosts, was most appalling. 

In the difficulty of hearing anything but wind and waves, and in the 
crowd, and the unspeakable confusion, and my first breathless efforts to 
stand against the weather, I was so confused that I looked out to sea for 
the wreck, and saw nothing but the foaming heads of the great waves. A 
half-dressed boatman, standing next me, pointed with his bare arm 
(a tattoo'd arrow on it, pointing in the same direction) to the left. Then, 
great Heaven, I saw it, close in upon us ! 

One mast was broken short off, six or eight feet from the deck, and lay 
over the side, entangled in a maze of sail and rigging ; and all that ruin, 
as the ship rolled and beat — which she did without a moment's pause, 
and with a violence quite inconceivable — beat the side as if it would 
stave it in. Some efforts were even then being made, to cut this portion of 
the wreck away ; for, as the ship, which was broadside on, turned towards 
us in her rolling, I plainly descried her people at work with axes, espe- 
cially one active figure with long curling hair, conspicuous among the rest. 
But, a great cry, which was audible even above the wind and water, rose 
from the shore at this moment ; the sea, sweeping over the rolling wreck 
made a clean breach, and carried men, spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, 
heaps of such toys, into the boiling surge. 

The second mast was yet standing, with the rags of a rent sail, and a 
wild confusion of broken cordage flapping to and fro. The ship had 
struck once, the same boatman hoarsely said in my ear, and then lifted 
in and struck again. I understood him to add that she was parting amid- 
ships, and I could readily suppose so, for the rolling and beating were too 
tremendous for any human work to suffer long. As he spoke, there was 
another great cry of pity from the beach ; four men arose with the 
wreck out of the deep, clinging to the rigging of the remaining mast ; 
uppermost, the active figure with the curling hair. 

There was a bell on board; and as the ship rolled and dashed, like a 
desperate creature driven mad, now showing us the whole sweep of her 
deck, as she turned on her beam-ends towards the shore, now nothing 
but her keel, as she sprung wildly over and turned towards the sea, the 
bell rang ; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was borne 
towards us on the wind. Again we lost her, and again she rose. Two 
men were gone. The agony on shore increased. Men groaned, and 
clasped their hands ; women shrieked, and turned away their faces. Some 
ran wildly up and down along the beach, crying for help where no help 
could be. I found myself one of these, frantically imploring a knot of 
sailors whom I knew, not to let those two lost creatures perish before 
our eyes. 



: 



OF DAVID COPPSEPIELD. 563 

They were making out to me, in an agitated way — I don't know how, 
for the little I could hear I was scarcely composed enough to understand — 
that the life-boat had been bravely manned an hour ago, and could do 
nothing ; and that as no man would be so desperate as to attempt to wade 
off with a rope, and establish a communication with the shore, there was 
nothing left to try ; when I noticed that some new sensation moved the 
people on the beach, and saw them part, and Ham come breaking through 
them to the front. 

I ran to him — as well as I know, to repeat my appeal for help. But, 
distracted though I was, by a sight so new to me and terrible, the determi- 
nation in his face, and his look, out to sea — exactly the same look as I 
remembered in connexion with the morning after Emily's flight — awoke 
me to a knowledge of his danger. I held him back with both arms ; 
and implored the men with whom I had been speaking, not to listen to 
him, not to do murder, not to let him stir from off that sand ! 

Another cry arose on shore ; and looking to the wreck, we saw the 
cruel sail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men, and fly 
up in triumph round the active figure left alone upon the mast. 

Against such a sight, and against such determination as that of the 
calmly desperate man who was already accustomed to lead half the people 
present, I might as hopefully have entreated the wind. " Mas'r Davy," 
he said, cheerily grasping me by both hands, " if my time is come, 'tis 
come. If 'tan't, I '11 bide it. Lord above bless you, and bless all ! Mates, 
make me ready! I'm a going off!" 

I was swept away, but not unkindly, to some distance, where the people 
around me made me stay ; urging, as I confusedly perceived, that he was bent 
on going, with help or without, and that I should endanger the precautions 
for his safety by troubling those with whom they rested. I don't know 
what I answered, or what they rejoined ; but, I saw hurry on the beach, 
and men running with ropes from a capstan that was there, and pene- 
trating into a circle of figures that hid him from me. Then, I saw him 
standing alone, in a seaman's frock and trowsers : a rope in his hand, or 
slung to his wrist : another round his body : and several of the best men 
holding, at a little distance, to the latter, which he laid out himself, slack 
upon the shore, at his feet. 

The wreck, even to my unpractised eye, was breaking up. I saw that 
she was parting in the middle, and that the life of the solitary man upon 
the mast hung by a thread. Still, he clung to it. He had a singular red 
cap on, — not like a sailor's cap, but of a finer color ; and as the few yielding 
planks between him and destruction rolled and bulged, and his anticipative 
death-knell rung, he was seen by all of us to wave it. I saw him do it 
now, and thought I was going distracted, when his action brought an 
old remembrance to my mind of a once dear friend. 

Ham watched the sea, standing alone, with the silence of suspended 
breath behind him, and the storm before, until there was a great retiring- 
wave, when, with a backward glance at those who held the rope which 
was made fast round his body, he dashed in after it, and in a moment 
was buffetting with the water; rising with the hills, falling with the 
valleys, lost beneath the foam ; then drawn again to land. They hauled 
in hastily. 

oo 2 



THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

He was hurt. I saw blood on Lis face, from where I stood ; but he 
took no thought of that. He seemed hurriedly to give them some direc- 
tions for leaving him more free — or so I judged from the motion of his 
arm — and was gone as before. 

And now he made for the wreck, rising with the hills, falling with the 
valleys, lost beneath the rugged foam, borne in towards the shore, borne 
on towards the ship, striving hard and valiantly. The distance was 
nothing, but the power of the sea and wind made the strife deadly. At 
length he neared the wreck. He was so near, that with one more of his 
vigorous strokes he would be clinging to it, — when, a high, green, vast 
hill-side of water, moving on shoreward, from beyond the ship, he seemed 
to leap up into it with a mighty bound, and the ship was gone ! 

Some eddying fragments I saw in the sea, as if a mere cask had been 
broken, in running to the spot where they were hauling in. Consternation 
was in every face. They drew him to my very feet — insensible — dead. 
He was carried to the nearest house ; and, no one preventing me now, I 
remained near him, busy, while every means of restoration were tried ; but 
he had been beaten to death by the great wave, and his generous heart 
was stilled for ever. 

As I sat beside the bed, when hope was abandoned and all was done, a 
fisherman, who had known me when Emily and I were children, and ever 
since, whispered my name at the door. 

" Sir," said he, with tears starting to his weather-beaten face, which, 
with his trembling lips, was ashy pale, " will you come over yonder?" 

The old remembrance that had been recalled to me, was in his look. I 
asked him, terror-stricken, leaning on the arm he held out to support me : 

" Has a body come ashore ? " 

He said, " Yes." 

" Do I know it ? " I asked then. 

He answered nothing. 

But, he led me to the shore. And on that part of it where she and I 
had looked for shells, two children — on that part of it where some lighter 
fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, had been scattered by 
the wind — among the ruins of the home he had wronged — I saw him 
lying with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school. 



CHAPTER LYI. 



THE NEW WOUND, AND THE OLD. 



No need, Steerforth, to have said, when we last spoke together, in 
that hour which I so little deemed to be our parting-hour — no need to have 
said, " Think of me at my best ! " I had done that ever ; and could I 
change now, looking on this sight ! 

They brought a hand-bier, and laid him on it, and covered him with a 



OF DAVID COPPE&FIELD. 565 

flag, and took him up and bore him on towards the houses. All the men 
who carried him had known him, and gone sailing with him, and seen him 
merry and bold. They carried him through the wild roar, a hush in the 
midst of all the tumult ; and took him to the cottage where Death was 
already. 

But, when they set the bier down on the threshold, they looked at one 
another, and at me, and whispered. I knew why. They felt as if it were 
not right to lay him down in the same quiet room. 

We went into the town, and took our burden to the inn. So soon as 
I could at all collect my thoughts, I sent for Joram, and begged him to 
provide me a conveyance in which it could be got to London in the night. 
I knew that the care of it, and the hard duty of preparing his mother to 
receive it, could only rest with me ; and I was anxious to discharge that 
duty as faithfully as I could. 

I chose the night for the journey, that there might be less curiosity 
when I left the town. But, although it was nearly midnight when I came 
out of the yard in a chaise, followed by what I had in charge, there were 
many people waiting. At intervals, along the town, and even a hjttle 
way out upon the road, I saw more ; but at length only the bleak night 
and the open country were around me, and the ashes of my youthful 
friendship. 

Upon a mellow autumn day, about noon, when the ground was per- 
fumed by fallen leaves, and many more, in beautiful tints of yellow, red, 
and brown, yet hung upon the trees, through which the sun was shining, 
I arrived at Highgate. I walked the last mile, thinking as I went along 
of what I had to do ; and left the carriage that had followed me all through 
the night, awaiting orders to advance. 

The house, when I came up to it, looked just the same. Not a blind 
was raised ; no sign of life was in the dull paved court, with its covered 
way leading to the disused door. The wind had quite gone down, and 
nothing moved. 

I had not, at first, the courage to ring at the gate ; and when I did 
ring, my errand seemed to me to be expressed in the very sound of the 
bell. The little parlour-maid came out, with the key in her hand ; and 
looking earnestly at me as she unlocked the gate, said : 

" I beg your pardon, sir. Are you ill? " 

" I have been much agitated, and am fatigued." 

" Is anything the matter, sir ? — Mr. James ? " 

" Hush ! " said I. " Yes, something has happened, that I have to 
break to Mrs. Steerforth. She is at home ? " 

The girl anxiously replied that her mistress was very seldom out now, 
even in a carriage ; that she kept her room ; that she saw no company, 
but would see me. Her mistress was up, she said, and Miss Dartle was 
with her. What message should she take up stairs ? 

Giving her a strict charge to be careful of her manner, and only to 
carry in my card and say I waited, I sat down in the drawing-room (which 
we had now reached) until she should come back. Its former pleasant air 
of occupation was gone, and the shutters were half closed. The harp 
had not been used for many and many a day. His picture, as a boy, was 
there. The cabinet in which his mother had kept his letters was there. 



566 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

I wondered if she ever read them now; if she would ever read them 
more ! 

The house was so still, that I heard the girl's light step up stairs. On 
her return, she brought a message, to the effect that Mrs. Steerforth was 
an invalid and could not come down ; but, that if I would excuse her 
being in her chamber, she would be glad to see me. In a few moments I 
stood before her. 

She was in his room ; not in her own. I felt, of course, that she had 
taken to occupy it, in remembrance of him ; and that the many tokens of 
his old sports and accomplishments, by which she was surrounded, 
remained there, just as he had left them, for the same reason. She mur- 
mured, however, even in her reception of me, that she was out of her own 
chamber because its aspect was unsuited to her infirmity ; and with her 
stately look repelled the least suspicion of the truth. 

At her chair, as usual, was Eosa Dartle. From the first moment of 
her dark eyes resting on me, I saw she knew I was the bearer of evil 
tidings. The scar sprung into view that instant. She withdrew herself 
a step behind the chair, to keep her own face out of Mrs. Steerforth' s 
observation ; and scrutinised me with a piercing gaze that never faltered, 
never shrunk. 

" I am sorry to observe you are in mourning, sir," said Mrs. Steerforth. 

" I am unhappily a widower," said I. 

" You are very young to know so great a loss," she returned. " I am 
grieved to hear it. I am grieved to hear it. I hope Time will be good 
to you." 

" I hope Time," said I, looking at her, w will be good to all of us. 
Dear Mrs. Steerforth, we must all trust to that, in our heaviest mis- 
fortunes." 

The earnestness of my manner, and the tears in my eyes, alarmed her. 
The whole course of her thoughts appeared to stop, and change. 

I tried to command my voice in gently saying his name, but it trembled. 
She repeated it to herself, two or three times, in a low tone. Then, 
addressing me, she said, with enforced calmness : 

" My son is ill." 

" Very ill." 

" You have seen him ? " 

" I have." 

" Are you reconciled ? " 

I could not say Yes, I could not say No. She slightly turned her 
head towards the spot where Eosa Dartle had been standing at her elbow, 
and in that moment I said, by the motion of my lips, to Eosa " Dead ! " 

That Mrs. Steerforth might not be induced to look behind her, and 
read, plainly written, what she was not yet prepared to know, I met her 
look quickly; but I had seen Eosa Dartle throw her hands up in 
the air with vehemence of despair and horror, and then clasp them on 
her face. 

The handsome lady — so like, so like ! — regarded me with a fixed 
look, and put her hand to her forehead. I besought her to be calm, and 
prepare herself to bear what I had to tell; but I should rather have 
entreated her to weep, for she sat like a stone figure. 



SMI 







o 



A,/ 



,o>m, //ce Jvafab t& ^^a, /^a^//wJ 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 567 

" When I was last here," I faltered, " Miss Dartle told me he was 
sailing here and there. The night before last was a dreadful one at sea. 
If he were at sea that night, and near a dangerous coast, as it is said 
he Avas; and if the vessel that was seen should really be the ship 
which ■ " 

" Eosa ! " said Mrs. Steerforth, " come to me ! " 

She came, but with no sympathy or gentleness. Her eyes gleamed 
like fire as she confronted his mother, and broke into a frightful laugh. 

" Now," she said, " is your pride appeased, you madwoman ? Now 

has he made atonement to you with his life ! Do you hear ? — His 

life ! " 

Mrs. Steerforth, fallen back stiffly in her chair, and making no sound 
but a moan, cast her eyes upon her with a wide stare. 

" Aye ! " cried Eosa, smiting herself passionately on the breast, " look 
at me ! Moan, and groan, and look at me ! Look here ! " striking the 
scar, " at your dead child's handy work ! " 

The moan the mother uttered, from time to time, went to my heart. 
Always the same. Always inarticulate and stifled. Always accompanied 
with an incapable motion of the head, but with no change of face. 
Always proceeding from a rigid mouth and closed teeth, as if the jaw 
were locked and the face frozen up in pain. 

" Do you remember when he did this ? " she proceeded, " Do you 
remember when, in his inheritance of your nature, and in your pampering 
of his pride and passion, he did this, and disfigured me for life ? Look 
at me, marked until I die with his high displeasure ; and moan and groan 
for what you made him ! " 

" Miss Dartle," I entreated her. "For Heaven's sake " 

" I will speak ! " she said, turning on me with her lightning eyes. "Be 
silent, you ! Look at me, I say, proud mother of a proud false son ! 
Moan for your nurture of him, moan for your corruption of him, moan for 
your loss of him, moan for mine ! " 

She clenched her hand, and trembled through her spare, worn figure, 
as if her passion were killing her by inches. 

" You, resent his selfwill ! " she exclaimed. " You, injured by his 
haughty temper ! You, who opposed to both, when your hair was grey, 
the qualities which made both when you gave him birth ! You, who from 
Ms cradle reared him to be what he was, and stunted what he should 
have been ! Are you rewarded, now, for your years of trouble ? " 

" Miss Dartle, shame ! cruel ! " 

*' I tell you," she returned, " I will speak to her. No power on earth 
should stop me, while I was standing here ! Have I been silent all these 
years, and shall I not speak now ? I loved him better than you ever 
loved him ! " turning on her fiercely. " I could have loved him, and 
asked no return. If I had been his wife, I could have been the slave of 
his caprices for a word of love a-year. I should have been. Who knows 
it better than I? You were exacting, proud, punctilious, selfish. My 
love would have been devoted — would have trod your paltry whimpering 
under foot ! " 

With flashing eyes, she stamped upon the ground as if she actually 
did it. 



568 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Look here ! " she said, striking the scar again, with a relentless 
hand. " When he grew into the better understanding of what he had 
done, he saw it, and repented of it ! I could sing to him, and talk to him, 
and show the ardor that I felt in all he did, and attain with labor to such 
knowledge as most interested him ; and I attracted him. When he was 
freshest and truest, he loved me. Yes, he did ! Many a time, when you 
were put off with a slight word, he has taken Me to his heart ! " 

She said it with a taunting pride in the midst of her frenzy — for it was 
little less — yet with an eager remembrance of it, in which the smouldering 
embers of a gentler feeling kindled for the moment. 

" I descended — as I might have known I should, but that he fascinated 
me with his boyish courtship — into a doll, a trifle for the occupation of an 
idle hour, to be dropped, and taken up, and trifled with, as the incon- 
stant humour took him. W T hen he grew weary, I grew weary. As his 
fancy died out, I would no more have tried to strengthen any power I had, 
than I would have married him on his being forced to take me for his wife. 
We fell away from one another without a word. Perhaps you saw it, 
and were not sorry. Since then, I have been a mere disfigured piece of 
furniture between you both ; having no eyes, no ears, no feelings, no 
remembrances. Moan ? Moan for what you made him ; not for your love. 
I tell you that the time was, when I loved him better than you ever did ! " 

She stood with her bright angry eyes confronting the wide stare, and 
the set face ; and softened no more, when the moaning was repeated, than 
if the face had been a picture. 

" Miss Dartle," said I, " if you can be so obdurate as not to feel for 
this afflicted mother " 

"Who feels for me?" she sharply retorted. " She has sown this. 
Let her moau for the harvest that she reaps to-day ! " 

" And if his faults " I began. 

" Faults ! " she cried, bursting into passionate tears. " Who dares 
malign him ? He had a soul worth millions of the friends to whom he 
stooped ! " 

" No one can have loved him better, no one can hold him in dearer 
remembrance, than I," I replied. " I meant to say, if you have no compas- 
sion for his mother; or if his faults — you have been bitter on them " 

" It 's false," she cried, tearing her black hair ; " I loved him ! " 

" — cannot," I went on, " be banished from your remembrance, in such 
an hour ; look at that figure, even as one you have never seen before, 
and render it some help ! " 

All this time, the figure was unchanged, and looked unchangeable. 
Motionless, rigid, staring ; moaning in the same dumb way from time to 
time, with the same helpless motion of the head ; but giving no other 
sign of life. Miss Dartle suddenly kneeled down before it, and began to 
loosen the dress. 

" A curse upon you ! " she said, looking round at me, with a mingled 
expression of rage and grief. " It was in an evil hour that you ever came 
here ! A curse upon you ! Go ! " 

After passing out of the room, I hurried back to ring the bell, the sooner 
to alarm the servants. She had then taken the impassive figure in her 
arms, and, still upon her knees, was weeping over it, kissing it, calling to 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 



569 



it, rocking it to and fro upon her bosom like a child, and trying every 
tender means to rouse the dormant senses. No longer afraid of leaving 
her, I noiselessly turned back again; and alarmed the house as I 
went out. 

Later in the day, I returned, and we laid him in his mother's room. 
She was just the same, they told me ; Miss Dartle never left her ; doctors 
were in attendance, many things had been tried ; but she lay like a statue, 
except for the low sound now and then. 

I went through the dreary house, and darkened the windows. The 
windows of the chamber where he lay, I darkened last. I lifted up the 
leaden hand, and held it to my heart ; and all the world seemed death and 
silence, broken only by his mother's moaning. 



CHAPTER LVIL 



THE EMIGRANTS. 



One thing more, I had to do, before yielding myself to the shock of 
these emotions. It was, to conceal what had occurred, from those who 
were going away; and to dismiss them on their voyage in happy ignorance. 
In this, no time was to be lost. 

I took Mr. Micawber aside that same night, and confided to him the 
task of standing between Mr. Peggotty and intelligence of the late catas- 
trophe. He zealously undertook to do so, and to intercept any newspaper 
through which it might, without such precautions, reach him. 

" If it penetrates to him, sir," said Mr. Micawber, striking himself on 
the breast, " it shall first pass through this body ! " 

Mr. Micawber, I must observe, in his adaptation of himself to a new state 
of society, had acquired a bold buccaneering air, not absolutely lawless, 
but defensive and prompt. One might have supposed him a child of the 
wilderness, long accustomed to live out of the confines of civilisation, and 
about to return to his native wilds. 

He had provided himself, among other things, with a complete suit of 
oil-skin, and a straw-hat with a very low crown, pitched or caulked on the 
outside. In this rough clothing, with a common mariner's telescope 
under his arm, and a shrewd trick of casting up his eye at the sky as 
looking out for dirty weather, he was far more nautical, after his manner, 
than Mr. Peggotty. His whole family, if I may so express it, were cleared 
for action. I found Mrs. Micawber in the closest and most uncompro- 
mising of bonnets, made fast under the chin ; and in a shawl which tied her 
up (as I had been tied up, when my aunt first received me) like a bundle, 
and was secured behind at the waist, in a strong knot. Miss Micawber 
I found made snug for stormy weather, in the same manner ; with nothing 
superfluous about her. Master Micawber was hardly visible in a Guernsey 



570 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

shirt, and the shaggiest suit of slops I ever saw ; and the children were 
done up, like preserved meats, in impervious cases. Both Mr. Micawber 
and his eldest son wore their sleeves loosely turned back at the wrists, as 
being ready to lend a hand in any direction, and to " tumble up," or sing 
out, " Yeo — Heave — Yeo ! " on the shortest notice. 

Thus Traddles and I found them at nightfall, assembled on the wooden 
steps, at that time known as Hungerford Stairs, watching the departure 
of a boat with some of their property on board. I had told Traddles of 
the terrible event, and it had greatly shocked him ; but there could 
be no doubt of the kindness of keeping it a secret, and he had come to 
help me in this last service. It was here that I took Mr. Micawber aside, 
and received his promise. 

The Micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty, tumble-down public- 
house, which in those days was close to the stairs, and whose protruding- 
wooden rooms overhung the river. The family, as emigrants, being objects 
of some interest in and about Hungerford, attracted so many beholders, 
that we were glad to take refuge in their room. It was one of the wooden 
chambers up-stairs, with the tide flowing underneath. My aunt and Agnes 
were there, busily making some little extra comforts, in the way of dress, 
for the children. Peggotty was quietly assisting, with the old insensible 
work-box, yard measure, and bit of wax-candle before her, that had now 
outlived so much. 

It was not easy to answer her inquiries ; still less to whisper Mr. Peg- 
gotty, when Mr. Micawber brought him in, that I had given the letter, 
and all was well. But I did both, and made them happy. If I showed 
any trace of what I felt, my own sorrows were sufficient to account for it. 

" And when does the ship sail, Mr. Micawber ? " asked my aunt. 

Mr. Micawber considered it necessary to prepare either my aunt or his 
wife, by degrees, and said, sooner than he had expected yesterday. 

" The boat brought you word, I suppose ? " said my aunt. 

" It did, ma'am," he returned. 

" Well ? " said my aunt. " And she sails—" 

"Madam," he replied, "I am informed that we must positively be on 
board before seven to-morrow morning." 

" Heyday ! " said my aunt, " that 's soon. Is it a sea-going fact, Mr. 
Peggotty?" 

"'Tis so, ma'am. She'll drop down the river with that theer tide. 
If Mas'r Davy and my sister comes aboard at Gravesen', arternoon o' next 
day, they'll see the last on us." 

"And that we shall do," said I, "be sure ! " 

" Until then, and until we are at sea," observed Mr. Micawber, with a 
glance of intelligence at me, " Mr. Peggotty and myself will constantly 
keep a double look-out together, on our goods and chattels. Emma, my 
love," said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat in his magnificent way, 
" my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles is so obliging as to solicit, in my ear, 
that he should have the privilege of ordering the ingredients necessary to 
the composition of a moderate portion of that Beverage which is peculiarly 
associated, in our minds, with the Eoast Beef of old England. I allude 
to — in short, Punch. Under ordinary circumstances, I should scruple to 
entreat the indulgence of Miss Trotwood and Miss Wickfield, but " 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 571 

"I can only say for myself," said my aunt, "that I will drink all 
happiness and success to you, Mr. Micawber, with the utmost pleasure." 

" And I too ! " said Agnes, with a smile. 

Mr. Micawber immediately descended to the bar, where he appeared to 
be quite at home ; and in due time returned with a steaming jug. I 
could not but observe that he had been peeling the lemons with his own 
clasp-knife, which, as became the knife of a practical settler, was about a 
foot long ; and which he wiped, not wholly without ostentation, on the 
sleeve of his coat. Mrs. Micawber and the two elder members of the 
family I now found to be provided with similar formidable instruments, 
while every child had its own wooden spoon attached to its body by a 
strong line. In a similar anticipation of life afloat, and in the Bush, Mr. 
Micawber, instead of helping Mrs. Micawber and his eldest son and 
daughter to punch, in wine-glasses, which he might easily have done, for 
there was a shelf-full in the room, served it out to them in a series of 
villainous little tin pots ; and I never saw him enjoy anything so much as 
drinking out of his own particular pint pot, and putting it in his pocket 
at the close of the evening. 

" The luxuries of the old country," said Mr. Micawber, with an intense 
satisfaction in their renouncement, " we abandon. The denizens of the 
forest cannot, of course, expect to participate in the refinements of the 
land of the Free." 

Here, a boy came in to say that Mr. Micawber was wanted down-stairs. 

" I have a presentiment," said Mrs. Micawber, setting down her tin pot, 
" that it is a member of my family ! " 

"If so, my dear," observed Mr. Micawber, with his usual suddenness 
of warmth on that subject, " as the member of your family — whoever he, 
she, or it, may be — has kept us waiting for a considerable period, perhaps 
the Member may now wait my convenience." 

" Micawber," said his wife, in a low tone, " at such a time as this — " 

" c It is not meet,' " said Mr. Micawber, rising, " ' that every nice offence 
should bear its comment ! ' Emma, I stand reproved." 

" The loss, Micawber," observed his wife, " has been my family's, not 
yours. If my family are at length sensible of the deprivation to which 
their own conduct has, in the past, exposed them, and now desire to 
extend the hand of fellowship, let it not be repulsed." 

" My dear," he returned, " so be it ! " 

" If not for their sakes ; for mine, Micawber," said his wife. 

" Emma," he returned, " that view of the question is, at such a moment, 
irresistible. I cannot, even now, distinctly pledge myself to fall upon your 
family's neck; but the member of your family, who is now in attendance, 
shall have no genial warmth frozen by me." 

Mr. Micawber withdrew, and was absent some little time ; in the course 
of which Mrs. Micawber was not wholly free from an apprehension that 
words might have arisen between him and the Member. At length the 
same boy re-appeared, and presented me with a note written in pencil, 
and headed, in a legal manner, " Heep v. Micawber." From this docu- 
ment, I learned that Mr. Micawber, being again arrested, was in a final 
paroxysm of despair ; and that he begged me to send him his knife and pint 
pot, by bearer, as they might prove serviceable during the brief remainder 



572 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

of his existence, in jail. He also requested, as a last act of friendship, 
that I would see his family to the Parish Workhouse, and forget that such 
a Being ever lived. 

Of course I answered this note by going down with the boy to pay the 
money, where I found Mr. Micawber sitting in a corner, looking darkly at 
the Sheriff's Officer who had effected the capture. On his release, he 
embraced me with the utmost fervor ; and made an entry of the trans- 
action in his pocket-book — being very particular, I recollect, about a 
halfpenny I inadvertently omitted from my statement of the total. 

This momentous pocket-book was a timely reminder to him of another 
transaction. On our return to the room upstairs (where he accounted 
for his absence by saying that it had been occasioned by circumstances 
over which he had no control), he took out of it a large sheet of paper, 
folded small, and quite covered with long sums, carefully worked. 
From the glimpse I had of them, I should say that I never saw such 
sums out of a school cyphering-book. These, it seemed, were calculations 
of compound interest on what he called " the principal amount of forty- 
one, ten, eleven and a half," for various periods. After a careful consi- 
deration of these, and an elaborate estimate of his resources, he had 
come to the conclusion to select that sum which represented the amount 
with compound interest to two years, fifteen calendar months, and 
fourteen days, from that date. For this he had drawn a note of-hand 
Avith great neatness, which he handed over to Traddles on the spot, a 
discharge of his debt in full (as between man and man), with many 
acknowledgments. 

" I have still a presentiment," said Mrs. Micawber, pensively shaking 
her head, " that my family will appear on board, before we finally 
depart." 

Mr. Micawber evidently had his presentiment on the subject too, but 
he put it in his tin pot and swallowed it. 

" If you have any opportunity of sending letters home, on your pas- 
sage, Mrs. Micawber," said my aunt, " you must let us hear from you, 
you know." 

" My dear Miss Trotwood," she replied, " I shall only be too happy to 
think that anyone expects to hear from us. I shall not fail to correspond. 
Mr. Copperfield, I trust, as an old and familiar friend, will not object to 
receive occasional intelligence, himself, from one who knew him when the 
twins were yet unconscious? " 

I said that I should hope to hear, whenever she had an opportunity of 
writing. 

"Please Heaven, there will be many such opportunities," said Mr. 
Micawber. " The ocean, in these times, is a perfect fleet of ships ; and 
we can hardly fail to encounter many, in running over. It is merely 
crossing," said Mr. Micawber, trifling with his eye-glass, " merely cross- 
ing. The distance is quite imaginary." 

I think, now, how odd it was, but how wonderfully like Mr. Micawber, 
that, when he went from London to Canterbury, he should have talked as 
if he were going to the farthest limits of the earth; and, when he went 
from England to Australia, as if he were going for a little trip across the 
channel. 



Of DAVID COPPERFIELD. 573 

" On the voyage, I shall endeavour," said Mr. Micawber, "occasionally 
to spin them a yarn ; and the melody of my son Wilkins will, I trust, be 
acceptable at the galley-fire. When Mrs. Micawber has her sea-legs on — 
an expression in which I hope there is no conventional impropriety — she 
will give them, I dare say, Little Tafflin. Porpoises and dolphins, I 
believe, will be frequently observed athwart our Bows ; and, either on the 
Starboard or the Larboard Quarter, objects of interest will be continually 
descried. In short," said Mr. Micawber, with the old genteel air, " the 
probability is, all will be found so exciting, alow and aloft, that when 
the look-out, stationed in the main-top, cries Land-ho ! we shall be very 
considerably astonished ! " 

With that he flourished off the contents of his little tin pot, as if he 
had made the voyage, and had passed a first-class examination before the 
highest naval authorities. 

" What I chiefly hope, my dear Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, 
" is, that in some branches of our family we may live again in the old 
country. Do not frown, Micawber ! I do not now refer to my own 
family, but to our childrens' children. However vigorous the sapling," 
said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, " I cannot forget the parent-tree ; 
and when our race attains to eminence and fortune, I own I should wish 
that fortune to flow into the coffers of Britannia." 

" My dear," said Mr. Micawber, " Britannia must take her chance. I 
am bound to say that she has never done much for me, and that I have 
no particular wish upon the subject." 

" Micawber," returned Mrs. Micawber, " there, you are wrong. You 
are going out, Micawber, to this distant clime, to strengthen, not to 
weaken, the connexion between yourself and Albion." 

" The connexion in question, my love," rejoined Mr. Micawber, " has 
not laid me, I repeat, under that load of personal obligation, that I am 
at all sensitive as to the formation of another connexion." 

" Micawber," returned Mrs. Micawber. " There, I again say, you are 
wrong. You do not know your power, Micawber. It is that which will 
strengthen, even in this step you are about to take, the connexion between 
yourself and Albion." 

Mr. Micawber sat in his elbow-chair, with his eyebrows raised ; half 
receiving and half repudiating Mrs. Micawber's views as they were stated, 
but very sensible of their foresight. 

" My dear Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, " I wish Mr. 
Micawber to feel his position. It appears to me highly important that 
Mr. Micawber should, from the hour of his embarkation, feel his position. 
Your old knowledge of me, my dear Mr. Copperfield, will have told you 
that I have not the sanguine disposition of Mr. Micawber. My disposi- 
tion is, if I may say so, eminently practical. I know that this is a long 
voyage. I know that it will involve many privations and inconveniences. 
I cannot shut my eyes to those facts. But, I also know what Mr. 
Micawber is. I know the latent power of Mr. Micawber. And therefore I 
consider it vitally important that Mr. Micawber should feel his position." 

" My love," he observed, " perhaps you will allow me to remark that 
it is barely possible that I do feel my position at the present moment." 

"I think not, Micawber," she rejoined. "Not fully. My dear 



574 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Mr. Copperfield, Mr. Micawber's is not a common case. Mr. Micawber is 
going to a distant country, expressly in order that lie may be fully under- 
stood and appreciated for the first time. I wish Mr. Micawber to take 
his stand upon that vessel's prow, and firmly say ' This country I am come 
to conquer ! Have you honours ? Have you riches ? Have you posts of 
profitable pecuniary emolument ? Let them be brought forward. They 
are mine ! ' " 

Mr. Micawber, glancing at us all, seemed to think there was a good 
deal in this idea. 

"I wish Mr. Micawber, if I make myself understood," said Mrs. 
Micawber, in her argumentative tone, " to be the Caesar of his own 
fortunes. That, my dear Mr, Copperfield, appears to me to be his true 
position. From the first moment of this voyage, I wish Mr. Micawber to 
stand upon that vessel's prow and say, ' Enough of delay : enough of 
disappointment : enough of limited means. That was in the old country. 
This is the new. Produce your reparation. Bring it forward ! ' " 

Mr. Micawber folded his arms, in a resolute manner, as if he were then 
stationed on the figure-head. 

" And doing that," said Mrs. Micawber, " — feeling his position — am I 
not right in saying that Mr. Micawber will strengthen, and not weaken, 
his connexion with Britain ? An important public character arising in 
that hemisphere, shall I be told that its influence will not be felt at 
home ? Can I be so weak as to imagine that Mr. Micawber, wielding the 
rod of talent and of power in Australia, will be nothing in England ? I 
am but a woman; but I should be unworthy of myself, and of my papa, if 
I were guilty of such absurd weakness." 

Mrs. Micawber's conviction that her arguments were unanswerable, 
gave a moral elevation to her tone which I think I had never heard 
in it before. 

" And therefore it is," said Mrs. Micawber, " that I the more wish, that, 
at a future period, we may live again on the parent soil. Mr. Micawber 
maybe — I cannot disguise from myself that the probability is, Mr. Micawber 
will be — a page of History ; and he ought then to be represented in the 
country which gave him birth, and did not give him employment ! " 

" My love," observed Mr. Micawber, "it is impossible for me not to be 
touched by your affection. I am always willing to defer to your good 
sense. What will be — will be. Heaven forbid that I should grudge my 
native country any portion of the wealth that may be accumulated by our 
descendants ! " 

" That 's well," said my aunt, nodding towards Mr. Peggotty, " and I 
drink my love to you all, and every blessing and success attend you ! " 

Mr. Peggotty put down the two children he had been nursing, one on 
each knee, to join Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in drinking to all of us in 
return; and when he and the Micawbers cordially shook hands as com- 
rades, and his brown face brightened with a smile, I felt that he would make 
his way, establish a good name, aud be beloved, go where he would. 

Even the children were instructed, each to dip a wooden spoon into 
Mr. Micawber's pot, and pledge us in its contents. When this was done, 
my aunt and Agnes rose, and parted from the emigrants. It was a 
sorrowful farewell. They were all crying ; the children hung about Agnes 






1 



OF DAVID COPPERFLELD. 575 

to the last ; and we left poor Mrs. Micawber in a very distressed con- 
dition, sobbing and weeping by a dim candle, that must have made the 
room look, from the river, like a miserable light-house. 

I went down again next morning to see that they were away. They 
had departed, in a boat, as early as five o'clock. It was a wonderful 
instance to me of the gap such partings make, that although my associa- 
tion of them with the tumble-down public-house and the wooden stairs 
dated only from last night, both seemed dreary and deserted, now that they 
were gone. 

In the afternoon of the next day, my old nurse and I went down to 
Gravesend. We found the ship in the river, surrounded by a crowd of 
boats; a favourable wind blowing; the signal for sailing at her mast 
head. I hired a boat directly, and we put off to her; and getting 
through the little vortex of confusion of which she was the centre, went 
on board. 

Mr. Peggotty was waiting for us on deck. He told me that Mr. Mi- 
cawber had just now been arrested again (and for the last time) at 
the suit of Heep, and that, in compliance with a request I had made to 
him, he had paid the money : which I repaid him. He then took us down 
between decks ; and there, any lingering fears I had of his having heard 
any rumours of what had happened, were dispelled by Mr. Micawber's 
coming out of the gloom, taking his arm with an air of friendship and 
protection, and telling me that they had scarcely been asunder for a 
moment, since the night before last. 

It was such a strange scene to me, and so confined and dark, that, at 
first, I could make out hardly anything ; but, by degrees, it cleared, as my 
eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, and I seemed to stand in a 
picture by Ostade. Among the great beams, bulks, and ringbolts of 
the ship, and the emigrant-berths, and chests, and bundles, and barrels, 
and heaps of miscellaneous baggage — lighted up, here and there, by 
dangling lanterns ; and elsewhere by the yellow day-light straying down a 
windsail or a hatchway — were crowded groups of people, making new 
friendships, taking leave of one another, talking, laughing, crying, eating 
and drinking ; some, already settled down into the possession of their few 
feet of space, with their little households arranged, and tiny children estab- 
lished on stools, or in dwarf elbow-chairs ; others, despairing of a resting- 
place, and wandering disconsolately. From babies who had but a week or 
two of life behind them, to crooked old men and women who seemed to 
have but a week or two of life before them ; and from ploughmen bodily 
carrying out soil of England on their boots, to smiths taking away 
samples of its soot and smoke upon their skins ; eveiy age and occupation 
appeared to be crammed into the narrow compass of the 'tween decks. 

As my eye glanced round this place, I thought I saw sitting, by an open 
port, with one of the Micawber children near her, a figure like Emily's ; 
it first attracted my attention, by another figure parting from it with a 
kiss ; and. as it glided calmly away through the disorder, reminding me 
of — Agnes ! But in the rapid motion and confusion, and in the unsettle- 
ment of my own thoughts, I lost it again ; and only knew that the time 
was come when all visitors were being warned to leave the ship ; that 
my nurse was crying on a chest beside me ; and that Mrs. Gummidge, 



576 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

assisted by some younger stooping woman in black, was busily arranging 
Mr. Peggotty's goods. 

" Is there any last wured, Mas'r Davy ? " said he. " Is there any one 
forgotten thing afore we parts ? " 
" One thing ! " said I. " Martha ! " 

He touched the younger woman I have mentioned on the shoulder, and 
Martha stood before me. 

" Heaven bless you, you good man! " cried I. "You take her with 
you!" 

She answered for him, with a burst of tears. I could speak no more, at 
that time, but I wrung his hand ; and if ever I have loved and honored 
any man, I loved and honored that man in my soul. 

The ship was clearing fast of strangers. The greatest trial that I had, 
remained. I told him what the noble spirit that was gone, had given me 
in charge to say at parting. It moved him deeply. But when he charged 
me, in return, with many messages of affection and regret for those deaf 
ears, he moved me more. 

The time was come. I embraced him, took my weeping nurse upon my 
arm, and hurried away. On deck, I took leave of poor Mrs. Micawber. 
She was looking distractedly about for her family, even then ; and her last 
words to me were, that she never would desert Mr. Micawber. 

We went over the side into our boat, and lay at a little distance to see 
the ship wafted on her course. It was then calm, radiant sunset. She 
lay between us, and the red light ; and every taper line and spar was 
visible against the glow. A sight at once so beautiful, so mournful, and 
so hopeful, as the glorious ship, lying, still, on the flushed water, with all 
the life on board her crowded at the bulwarks, and there clustering, for a 
moment, bare-headed and silent, I never saw. 

Silent, only for a moment. As the sails rose to the wind, and the ship 
began to move, there broke from all the boats three resounding cheers, 
which those on board took up, and echoed back, and which were echoed 
and re-echoed. My heart burst out when I heard the sound, and beheld 
the waving of the hats and handkerchiefs — and then I saw her ! 

Then, I saw her, at her uncle's side, and trembling on his shoulder. He 
pointed to us with an eager hand ; and she saw us, and waved her last good- 
bye to me. Aye, Emily, beautiful and drooping, cling to him with the 
utmost trust of thy bruised heart ; for he has clung to thee, with all the 
might of his great love ! 

Surrounded by the rosy light, and standing high upon the deck, apart 
together, she clinging to him, and he holding her, they solemnly passed 
away. The night had fallen on the Kentish hills when we were rowed 
ashore — and fallen darkly upon me. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 577 



CHAPTEE LYIII. 

ABSENCE. 

It was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me, haunted by the 
ghosts of many hopes, of many dear remembrances, many errors, many 
unavailing sorrows and regrets. 

I went away from England ; not knowing, even then, how great the shock 
was, that I had to bear. I left all who were dear to me, and went away ; and 
believed that I had borne it, and it was past. As a man upon a field of 
battle will receive a mortal hurt, and scarcely know that he is struck, so I, 
when I was left alone with my undisciplined heart, had no conception of 
the wound with which it had to strive. 

The knowledge came upon me, not quickly, but little by little, and 
grain by grain. The desolate feeling with which I went abroad, deepened 
and widened hourly. At first it was a heavy sense of loss and sorrow, 
wherein I could distinguish little else. By imperceptible degrees, it 
became a hopeless consciousness of all that I had lost — love, friendship, 
interest ; of all that had been shattered — my first trust, my first affection, 
the whole airy castle of my life ; of all that remained — a ruined blank and 
waste, lying wide around me, unbroken, to the dark horizon. 

If my grief were selfish, I did not know it to be so. I mourned for my 
child- wife, taken from her blooming world, so young. I mourned for 
him who might have won the love and admiration of thousands, as he 
had won mine long ago. I mourned for the broken heart that had found 
rest in the stormy sea ; and for the wandering remnants of the simple 
home, where I had heard the night-wind blowing, when I was a child. 

Erom the accumulated sadness into which I fell, I had at length no 
hope of ever issuing again. I roamed from place to place, carrying my 
burden with me everywhere. I felt its whole weight now ; and I drooped 
beneath it, and I said in my heart that it could never be lightened. 

When this despondency was at its worst, I believed that I should die. 
Sometimes, I thought that I would like to die at home; and actually 
turned back on my road, that I might get there soon. At other times, I 
passed on farther away, from city to city, seeking I know not what, and 
trying to leave I know not what behind. 

It is not in my power to retrace, one by one, all the weary phases of 
distress of mind through which I passed. There are some dreams that 
can only be imperfectly and vaguely described ; and when I oblige myself 
to look back on this time of my life, I seem to be recalling such a dream. 
I see myself passing on among the novelties of foreign towns, palaces, 
cathedrals, temples, pictures, castles, tombs, fantastic streets — the old 
abiding places of History and Eancy — as a dreamer might ; bearing my 
painful load through all, and hardly conscious of the objects as they fade 

p p 



578 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

before me. Listlessness to everything, but brooding sorrow, was the night 
that fell on my undisciplined heart. Let me look up from it — as at 
last I did, thank Heaven ! — and from its long, sad, wretched dream, to 
dawn. 

For many months I travelled with this ever-darkening cloud upon my 
mind. Some blind reasons that I had for not returning home — reasons 
then struggling within me, vainly, for more distinct expression — kept me 
on my pilgrimage. Sometimes, I had proceeded restlessly from place to 
place, stopping nowhere ; sometimes, I had lingered long in one spot. I 
had had no purpose, no sustaining soul within me, anywhere. 

I was in Switzerland. I had come out of Italy, over one of the great 
passes of the Alps, and had since wandered with a guide among the bye-ways 
of the mountains. If those awful solitudes had spoken to my heart, I did 
not know it. I had found sublimity and wonder in the dread heights and 
precipices, in the roaring torrents, and the wastes of ice and snow ; but as 
yet, they had taught me nothing else. 

I came, one evening before sunset, down into a valley, where I was to 
rest. In the course of my descent to it, by the winding track along the 
mountain-side, from which I saw it shining far below, I think some long- 
unwonted sense of beauty and tranquillity, some softening influence 
awakened by its peace, moved faintly in my breast. I remember pausing 
once, with a kind of sorrow that was not all oppressive, not quite 
despairing. I remember almost hoping that some better change was 
possible within me. 

I came into the valley, as the evening sun was shining on the remote 
heights of snow, that closed it in, like eternal clouds. The bases of the 
mountains forming the gorge in which the little village lay, were richly 
green ; and high above this gentler vegetation, grew forests of dark fir, 
cleaving the wintry snow-drift, wedge-like, and stemming the avalanche. 
Above these, were range upon range of craggy steeps, grey rock, bright 
ice, and smooth verdure-specks of pasture, all gradually blending with the 
crowning snow. Dotted here and there on the mountain's-side, each tiny 
dot a home, were lonely wooden cottages, so dwarfed by the towering 
heights that they appeared too small for toys. So did even the clustered 
village in the valley, with its wooden bridge across the stream, where 
the stream tumbled over broken rocks, and roared away among the 
trees. In the quiet air, there was a sound of distant singing — shepherd 
voices ; but, as one bright evening cloud floated midway along the moun- 
tain's-side, I could almost have believed it came from there, and was 
not earthly music. All at once, in this serenity, great Nature spoke to 
me ; and soothed me to lay down my weary head upon the grass, and 
weep as I had not wept yet, since Dora died ! 

I had found a packet of letters awaiting me but a few minutes before, 
and had strolled out of the village to read them while my supper was 
making ready. Other packets had missed me, and I had received none for 
a long time. Beyond a line or two, to say that I was well, and had arrived 
at such a place, I had not had fortitude or constancy to write a letter 
since I left home. 

The packet was in my hand. I opened it, and read the writing of 
Agnes. 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 579 

She was happy and useful, was prospering as she had hoped. That 
was all she told me of herself. The rest referred to me. 

She gave me no advice ; she urged no duty on me ; she only told me, 
in her own fervent manner, what her trust in me was. She knew (she 
said) how such a nature as mine would turn affliction to good. She knew 
how trial and emotion would exalt and strengthen it. She was sure that 
in my every purpose I should gain a firmer and a higher tendency, through 
the grief I had undergone. She, who so gloried in my fame, and so 
looked forward to its augmentation, well knew that I would labor on. She 
knew that in me, sorrow could not be weakness, but must be strength. As 
the endurance of my childish days had done its part to make me what I 
was, so greater calamities would nerve me on, to be yet better than I was ; 
and so, as they had taught me, would I teach others. She commended 
me to God, who had taken my innocent darling to His rest ; and in her 
sisterly affection cherished me always, and was always at my side go where 
I would ; proud of what I had done, but infinitely prouder yet of what 
I was reserved to do. 

I put the letter in my breast, and thought what had I been an hour 
ago ! When I heard the voices die away, and saw the quiet evening cloud 
grow dim, and all the colors in the valley fade, and the golden snow upon 
the mountain tops become a remote part of the pale night sky, yet felt 
that the night was passing from my mind, and all its shadows clearing, 
there was no name for the love 1 bore her, dearer to me, henceforward, 
than ever until then. 

I read her letter, many times. I wrote to her before I slept. I told 
her that I had been in sore need of her help ; that without her I was 
not, and I never had been, what she thought me ; but, that she inspired 
me to be that, and I would try. 

I did try. In three months more, a year would have passed since the 
beginning of my sorrow. I determined to make no resolutions until the 
expiration of those three months, but to try. I lived in that valley, and its 
neighbourhood, all the time. 

The three months gone, I resolved to remain away from home for some 
time longer ; to settle myself for the present in Switzerland, which was 
growing dear to me in the remembrance of that evening ; to resume my 
pen ; to work. 

I resorted humbly whither Agnes had commended me ; I sought out 
Nature, never sought in vain ; and I admitted to my breast the human 
interest I had lately shrunk from. It was noHong, before I had almost 
as many friends in the valley as in Yarmouth ; and when I left it, before 
the winter set in, for Geneva, and came back in the spring, their cordial 
greetings had a homely sound to me, although they were not conveyed in 
English words. 

I worked early and late, patiently and hard. I wrote a Story, with a 
purpose growing, not remotely, out of my experience, and sent it to 
Traddles, and he arranged for its publication very advantageously for me ; 
and the tidings of my growing reputation began to reach me from travellers 
whom I encountered by chance. After some rest and change, I fell to 
work, in my old ardent way, on a new fancy, which took strong possession 
of me. As I advanced in the execution of this task, I felt it more and 

p p 2 



580 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

more, and roused my utmost energies to do it well. This was my third 
work of fiction. It was not half written, when, in an interval of rest, I 
thought of returning home. 

For a long time, though studying and working patiently, I had accus- 
tomed myself to robust exercise. My health, severely impaired when I left 
England, was quite restored. I had seen much. I had been in many 
countries, and I hope I had improved my store of knowledge. 

I have now recalled all that I think it needful to recal here, of this 
term of absence — with one reservation. I have made it, thus far, with 
no purpose of suppressing any of my thoughts ; for, as I have elsewhere 
said, this narrative is my written memory. I have desired to keep the 
most secret current of my mind apart, and to the last. I enter on 
it now. 

I cannot so completely penetrate the mystery of my own heart, as to 
know when I began to think that I might have set its earliest and brightest 
hopes on Agnes. I cannot say at what stage of my grief it first became 
associated with the reflection, that, in my wayward boyhood, I had 
thrown away the treasure of her love. I believe I may have heard some 
whisper of that distant thought, in the old unhappy loss or want of 
something never to be realised, of which I had been sensible. But the 
thought came into my mind as a new reproach and new regret, when I 
was left so sad and lonely in the world. 

If, at that time, I had been much with her, I should, in the weak- 
ness of my desolation, have betrayed this. It was what I remotely 
dreaded when I was first impelled to stay away from England. I could 
not have borne to lose the smallest portion of her sisterly affection; 
yet, in that betrayal, I should have set a constraint between us hitherto 
unknown. 

I could not forget that the feeling with which she now regarded 
me had grown up in my own free choice and course. That if she had 
ever loved me with another love — and I sometimes thought the time was 
when she might have done so — I had cast it away. It was nothing, now, 
that I had accustomed myself to think of her, when we were both mere 
children, as one who was far removed from my wild fancies. I had 
bestowed my passionate tenderness upon another object; and what I 
might have done, I had not done ; and what Agnes was to me, I and her 
own noble heart had made her. 

In the beginning of the change that gradually worked in me, when I 
tried to get a better understanding of myself and be a better man, I did 
glance, through some indefinite probation, to a period when I might pos- 
sibly hope to cancel the mistaken past, and to be so blessed as to many 
her. But, as time wore on, this shadowy prospect faded, and departed 
from me. If she had ever loved me, then, I should hold her the more 
sacred; remembering the confidences I had reposed in her, her knowledge 
of my errant heart, the sacrifice she must have made to be my friend and 
sister, and the victory she had won. If she had never loved me, could I 
believe that she would love me now ? 

I had always felt my weakness, in comparison with her constancy and 
fortitude ; and now I felt it more and more. Whatever I might have been 
to her, or she to me, if I had been more worthy of her long ago, I was 



OF DAVID COPPEll]?IELD. 



581 



not now, and she was not. The time was past. I had let it go by, and 
had deservedly lost her. 

That I suffered much in these contentions, that they filled me with 
unhappiness and remorse, and yet that I had a sustaining sense that it 
was required of me, in right and honor, to keep away from myself, with 
shame, the thought of turning to the dear girl in the withering of my 
hopes, from whom I had frivolously turned when they were bright and 
fresh — which consideration was at the root of every thought I had con- 
cerning her — is all equally true. I made no effort to conceal from myself, 
now, that I loved her, that I was devoted to her ; but I brought the 
assurance home to myself, that it was now too late, and that our long- 
subsisting relation must be undisturbed. 

I had thought, much and often, of my Dora's shadowing out to me 
what might have happened, in those years that were destined not to try us ; 
I had considered how the things that never happen, are often as much 
realities to us, in their effects, as those that are accomplished. The very 
years she spoke of, were realities now, for my correction ; and would have 
been, one day, a little later perhaps, though we had parted in our earliest 
folly. I endeavoured to convert what might have been between myself 
and Agnes, into a means of making me more self-denying, more resolved, 
more conscious of myself, and my defects and errors. Thus, through the 
reflection that it might have been, I arrived at the conviction that it could 
never be. 

These, with their perplexities and inconsistencies, were the shifting 
quicksands of my mind, from the time of my departure to the time of 
my return home, three years afterwards. Three years had elapsed since 
the sailing of the emigrant ship ; when, at that same hour of sunset, and 
in the same place, I stood on the deck of the packet vessel that brought 
me home, looking on the rosy water where I had seen the image of that 
ship reflected. 

Three years. Long in the aggregate, though short as they went by. 
And home was very dear to me, and Agnes too — but she was not mine — 
she was never to be mine. She might have been, but that was past ! 



582 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 



CHAPTER LIX. 

KETUEN. 

I landed in London on a wintry autumn evening. It was dark and 
raining, and I saw more fog and mud in a minute than I had seen in a 
year. I walked from the Custom House to the Monument before I found 
a coach; and although the very house-fronts, looking on the swollen 
gutters, were like old friends to me, I could not but admit that they were 
very dingy friends. 

I have often remarked — I suppose everybody has — that one's going 
away from a familiar place, would seem to be the signal for change in it. 
As I looked out of the coach-window, and observed that an old house on 
Fish-street Hill, which had stood untouched by painter, carpenter, or 
bricklayer, for a century, had been pulled down in my absence ; and that 
a neighbouring street, of time-honored insalubrity and inconvenience, was 
being drained and widened ; I half expected to find St. Paul's Cathedral 
looking older. 

For some changes in the fortunes of my friends, I was prepared. 
My aunt had long been re-established at Dover, and Traddles had begun 
to get into some little practice at the Bar, in the very first term after 
my departure. He had chambers in Gray's Inn, now ; and had told me, 
in his last letters, that he was not without hopes of being soon united to 
the dearest girl in the world. 

They expected me home before Christmas; but had no idea of my 
returning so soon. I had purposely misled them, that I might have the 
pleasure of taking them by surprise. And yet, I was perverse enough to 
feel a chill and disappointment in receiving no welcome, and rattling, 
alone and silent, through the misty streets. 

The well-known shops, however, with their cheerful lights, did some- 
thing for me; and when I alighted at the door of the Gray's Inn Coffee- 
house, I had recovered my spirits. It recalled, at first, that so-dhTerent 
time when I had put up at the Golden Cross, and reminded me of the 
changes that had come to pass since then ; but that was natural. 

" Do you know where Mr. Traddles lives in the Inn?" I asked the 
waiter, as I warmed myself by the coffee-room fire. 

" Holborn Court, sir. Number two." 

" Mr. Traddles has a rising reputation among the lawyers, I believe? " 
said I. 

" Well, sir," returned the waiter, "probably he has, sir; but I am not 
aware of it myself." 

This waiter, who was middle-aged and spare, looked for help to a 
waiter of more authority — a stout, potential old man, with a double-chin, 
in black breeches and stockings, who came out of a place like a church- 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 583 

warden's pew, at the end of the coffee-room, where he kept company with 
a cash-box, a Directory, a Law-list, and other books and papers. 

" Mr. Traddles," said the spare waiter. " Number two in the Court." 

The potential waiter waved him away, and turned, gravely, to me. 

" I was inquiring," said I, " whether Mr. Traddles at number two in the 
Court, has not a rising reputation among the lawyers ? " 

"Never heard his name," said the waiter, in a rich husky voice. 

I felt quite apologetic for Traddles. 

"He's a young man, sure?" said the portentous waiter, fixing his 
eyes severely on me. " How long has he been in the Inn ?" 

" Not above three years," said I. 

The waiter, who I supposed had lived in his churchwarden's pew for 
forty years, could not pursue such an insignificant subject. He asked me 
what I would have for dinner ? 

I felt I was in England again, and really was quite cast down on Trad- 
dles's account. There seemed to be no hope for him. I meekly ordered 
a bit of fish and a steak, and stood before the fire musing on his obscurity. 

As I followed the chief waiter with my eyes, I could not help thinking 
that the garden in which he had gradually blown to be the flower he 
was, was an arduous place to rise in. It had such a prescriptive, stiff- 
necked, long-established, solemn, elderly air. I glanced about the room, 
which had had its sanded floor sanded, no doubt, in exactly the same 
manner when the chief waiter was a boy — if he ever was a boy, which 
appeared improbable; and at the shining tables, where I saw myself 
reflected, in unruffled depths of old mahogany ; and at the lamps, without 
a flaw in their trimming or cleaning ; and at the comfortable green cur- 
tains, with their pure brass rods, snugly enclosing the boxes ; and at the 
two large coal fires, brightly burning ; and at the rows of decanters, burly 
as if with the consciousness of pipes of expensive old port wine below ; 
and both England, and the law, appeared to me to be very difficult indeed 
to be taken by storm. I went up to my bed-room to change my wet 
clothes ; and the vast extent of that old wainscotted apartment (which 
was over the archway leading to the Inn, I remember), and the sedate 
immensity of the four-post bedstead, and the indomitable gravity of the 
chests of drawers, all seemed to unite in sternly frowning on the fortunes of 
Traddles, or on any such daring youth. I came down again to my dinner ; 
and even the slow comfort of the meal, and the orderly silence of the 
place — which was bare of guests, the Long Vacation not yet being over — 
were eloquent on the audacity of Traddles, and his small hopes of a liveli- 
hood for twenty years to come. 

I had seen nothing like this since I went away, and it quite dashed my 
hopes for my friend. The chief waiter had had enough of me. He came 
near me no more ; but devoted himself to an old gentleman in long gaiters, 
to meet whom a pint of special port seemed to come out of the cellar of 
its own accord, for he gave no order. The second waiter informed me, in 
a whisper, that this old gentleman was a retired conveyancer living in the 
Square, and worth a mint of money, which it was expected he would leave 
to his laundress's daughter ; likewise that it was rumoured that he had a 
service of plate in a bureau, all tarnished with lying by, though more than 
one spoon and a fork had never yet been beheld in his chambers by mortal 



5S4 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

vision. By this time, I quite gave Traddles up for lost ; and settled in my 
own mind that there was no hope for him. 

Being very anxious to see the dear old fellow, nevertheless, I despatched 
my dinner, in a manner not at all calculated to raise me in the opinion of 
the chief waiter, and hurried out by the back way. Number tw r o in the 
Court was soon reached ; and an inscription on the door-post informing 
me that Mr. Traddles occupied a set of chambers on the top story, I 
ascended the staircase. A crazy old staircase I found it to be, feebly 
lighted on each landing by a club-headed little oil wick, dying away in a 
little dungeon of dirty glass. 

In the course of my stumbling up stairs, I fancied I heard a pleasant 
sound of laughter ; and not the laughter of an attorney or barrister, or 
attorney's clerk or barrister's clerk, but of two or three merry girls. Happen- 
ing, however, as I stopped to listen, to put my foot in a hole where the 
Honorable Society of Gray's Inn had left a plank deficient, I fell down 
with some noise, and when I recovered my footing all was silent. 

Groping my way more carefully, for the rest of the journey, my heart 
beat high when I found the outer door, which had Mr. Traddles painted 
on it, open. I knocked. A considerable scuffling within ensued, but 
nothing else. I therefore knocked again. 

A small sharp-looking lad, half-footboy and half-clerk, who was very 
much out of breath, but who looked at me as if he defied me to prove it 
legally, presented himself. 

" Is Mr. Traddles within ? " said I. 
"Yes, sir, but he's engaged." 
" I want to see him." 

After a moment's survey of me, the sharp-looking lad decided to let me 
in ; and opening the door wider for that purpose, admitted me, first, into a 
little closet of a hall, and next into a little sitting-room ; where I came 
into the presence of my old friend (also out of breath), seated at a table, 
and bending over papers. 

" Good God ! " cried Traddles, looking up. " It 's Copperfield ! " 
and rushed into my arms, where I held him tight. 
" All well, my dear Traddles ? " 

" All well, my dear, dear Copperfield, and nothing but good news ! " 
We cried with pleasure, both of us. 

" My dear fellow," said Traddles, rumpling his hair in his excitement, 
which was a most unnecessary operation, " my dearest Copperfield, my 
long-lost and most welcome friend, how glad I am to see you ! How 
brown you are ! How glad I am ! Upon my life and honor, I never was 
so rejoiced, my beloved Copperfield, never ! " 

1 was equally at a loss to express my emotions. I was quite unable to 
speak, at first. 

"My dear fellow!" said Traddles. "And grown so famous! My 
glorious Copperfield ! Good gracious me, wlien did you come, where have 
you come from, what have you been doing? " 

Never pausing for an answer to anything he said, Traddles, who had 
clapped me into an easy chair by the fire, all this time impetuously stirred 
the fire with one hand, and pulled at my neck-kerchief with the other, 
under some wild delusion that it was a great coat. Without putting 



OF DAVID COPPEKJFIELD. 585 

down the poker, lie now hugged me again ; and I hugged him ; and, both 
laughing, and both wiping our eyes, we both sat down, and shook hands 
across the hearth. 

" To think," said Traddles, " that you should have been so nearly 
coming home as you must have been, my dear old boy, and not at the 
ceremony ! " 

" What ceremony, my dear Traddles ? " 

" Good gracious me ! " cried Traddles, opening his eyes in his old way. 
" Didn't you get my last letter ? " 

" Certainly not, if it referred to any ceremony." 

"Why, my dear Copperfieid," said Traddles, sticking his hair upright 
with both hands, and then putting his hands on my knees, "I am 
married ! " 

" Married ! " I cried, joyfully ! 

" Lord bless me, yes ! " said Traddles — "by the Eeverend Horace — to 
Sophy — down in Devonshire. Why, my dear boy, she 's behind the 
window curtain ! Look here ! " 

To my amazement, the dearest girl in the world came at that same 
instant, laughing and blushing, from her place of concealment. And a 
more cheerful, amiable, honest, happy, bright-looking bride, I believe (as 
I could not help saying on the spot) the world never saw. I kissed her 
as an old acquaintance should, and wished them joy with all my might of 
heart. 

"Dear me," said Traddles, "what a delightful re-union this is ! You 
are so extremely brown, my dear Copperfieid ! God bless my soul, how 
happy I am ! " 

" And so am I," said I. 

" And I am sure I am ! " said the blushing and laughing Sophy. 

"We are all as happy as possible! " said Traddles. "Even the girls 
are happy. Dear me, I declare I forgot them ! " 

" Forgot ? " said I. 

" The girls," said Traddles. " Sophy's sisters. They are staying with 
us. They have come to have a peep at London. The fact is, when — 
was it you that tumbled up stairs, Copperfieid ? " 

" It was," said I, laughing. 

" Well then, when you tumbled up stairs," said Traddles, " I was romping 
with the girls. In point of fact, we were playing at Puss in the Corner. 
But as that wouldn't do in Westminster Hall, and as it wouldn't look 
quite professional if they were seen by a client, they decamped. And they 
are now — listening, I have no doubt," said Traddles, glancing at the door 
of another room. 

" I am sorry," said I, laughing afresh, " to have occasioned such a 
dispersion." 

"Upon my word," rejoined Traddles, greatly delighted, "if you had 
seen them running away, and running back again, after you had knocked, 
to pick up the combs they had dropped out of their hair, and going on n 
the maddest manner, you wouldn't have said so. My love, will you fetch 
the girls ? " 

Sophy tripped away, and we heard her received in the adjoining room 
with a peal of laughter. 



586 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Really musical, isn't it, my dear Copperfield ? " said Traddles. " It 'a 
very agreeable to hear. It quite lights up these old rooms. To an 
unfortunate bachelor of a fellow who has lived alone all his life, you know, 
it 's positively delicious. It 's charming. Poor things, they have had a 
great loss in Sophy — who, I do assure you, Copperfield, is, and ever was, 
the dearest girl I — and it gratifies me beyond expression to find them in 
such good spirits. The society of girls is a very delightful thing, 
Copperfield. It 's not professional, but it 's very delightful." 

Observing that he slightly faltered, and comprehending that in the 
goodness of his heart he was fearful of giving me some pain by what he 
had said, I expressed my concurrence with a heartiness that evidently 
relieved and pleased him greatly. 

" But then," said Traddles, " our domestic arrangements are, to say 
the truth, quite unprofessional altogether, my dear Copperfield. Even 
Sophy's being here, is unprofessional. And we have no other place of 
abode. We have put to sea in a cockboat, but we are quite prepared 
to rough it. And Sophy 's an extraordinary manager ! You 'H be sur- 
prised how those girls are stowed away. I am sure I hardly know how 
it 's done." 

" Are many of the young ladies with you ? " I inquired. 

" The eldest, the Beauty is here," said Traddles, in a low confidential 
voice, " Caroline. And Sarah 's here — the one I mentioned to you 
as having something the matter with her spine, you know. Immensely 
better ! And the two youngest that Sophy educated are with us. And 
Louisa 's here." 

" Indeed ! " cried I. 

" Yes," said Traddles. " Now the w r hole set — I mean the chambers — 
is only three rooms ; but Sophy arranges for the girls in the most wonder- 
ful way, and they sleep as comfortably as possible. Three in that room," 
said Traddles, pointing. " Two in that." 

I could not help glancing round, in search of the accommodation 
remaining for Mr. and Mrs. Traddles. Traddles understood me. 

" Well ! " said Traddles, " we are prepared to rough it, as I said just 
now ; and we did improvise a bed last week, upon the floor here. But 
there 's a little room in the roof — a very nice room, when you 're up there 
— which Sophy papered herself, to surprise me ; and that 's our room at 
present. It 's a capital little gipsey sort of place. There 's quite a view 
from it." 

" And you are happily married at last, my dear Traddles ! " said I. 
" How rejoiced I am ! " 

" Thank you, my dear Copperfield," said Traddles, as we shook hands 
once more. " Yes, I am as happy as it 's possible to be. There 's your old 
friend, you see," said Traddles, nodding triumphantly at the flower-pot 
and stand; "and there's the table with the marble top ! All the other 
furniture is plain and serviceable, you perceive. And as to plate, Lord 
bless you, we haven't so much as a tea-spoon." 

"All to be earned? " said I, cheerfully. 

" Exactly so," replied Traddles, " all to be earned. Of course we have 
something in the shape of tea-spoons, because we stir our tea. But 
they 're Britannia metal." 



OF DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 587 

" The silver will be the brighter when it comes," said I. 

" The very thing we say ! " cried Traddles. " You see, my dear 
Copperfield," falling again into the low confidential tone, " after I had 
delivered my argument in Doe dem Jipes versus Wigzell, which did 
me great service with the profession, I went down into Devonshire, and 
had some serious conversation in private with the Eeverend Horace. I 
dwelt upon the fact that Sophy — who I do assure you, Copperfield, is the 
dearest girl ! " 

"lam certain she is ! " said I. 

" She is, indeed ! " rejoined Traddles. " But I am afraid I am wander- 
ing from the subject. Did I mention the Eeverend Horace ? " 

• You said that you dwelt upon the fact " 

" True ! Upon the fact that Sophy and I had been engaged for a long 
period, and that Sophy, with the permission of her parents, was more 
than content to take me — in short," said Traddles, with his old frank smile, 
" on our present Britannia-metal footing. Very well. I then proposed 
to the Eeverend Horace — who is a most excellent clergyman, Copperfield, 
and ought to be a Bishop ; or at least ought to have enough to live upon, 
without pinching himself — that if I could turn the corner, say of two 
hundred and fifty pounds, in one year ; and could see my way pretty clearly 
to that, or something better, next year ; and could plainly furnish a little 
place like this, besides ; then, and in that case, Sophy and I should be 
united. I took the liberty of representing that we had been patient for a 
good many years ; and that the circumstance of Sophy's being extraor- 
dinarily useful at home, ought not to operate, with her affectionate parents, 
against her establishment in life — don't you see?" 

" Certainly it ought not," said I. 

" I am glad you think so, Copperfield," rejoined Traddles, " because, 
without any imputation on the Eeverend Horace, I do think parents, 
and brothers, and so forth, are sometimes rather selfish in such cases. 
Well ! I also pointed out, that my most earnest desire was, to be useful 
to the family ; and that if I got on in the world, and anything should 
happen to him — I refer to the Eeverend Horace — " 

" I understand," said I. 

" — Or to Mrs. Crewler — it would be the utmost gratification of my 
w r ishes, to be a parent to the girls. He replied in a most admirable manner, 
exceedingly flattering to my feelings, and undertook to obtain the consent 
of Mrs. Crewler to this arrangement. They had a dreadful time of it 
with her. It mounted from her legs into her chest, and then into her 
head—" 

" What mounted ? " I asked. 

" Her grief," replied Traddles, with a serious look. " Her feelings 
generally. As I mentioned on a former occasion, she is a very superior 
woman, but has lost the use of her limbs. Whatever occurs to harass 
her, usually settles in her legs ; but on this occasion it mounted to the 
chest, and then to the head, and, in short, pervaded the whole system 
in a most alarming manner. However, they brought her through it by 
unremitting and affectionate attention ; and we were married yesterday 
six weeks. You have no idea what a Monster I felt, Copperfield, when I 
saw the whole family crying and fainting away in every direction ! Mrs. 



588 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Crcwler couldn't see me before we left— couldn't forgive me, then, for 
depriving her of her child — but she is a good creature, and has done so 
since, I had a delightful letter from her, only this morning." 

" And in short, my dear friend," said I, " you feel as blest as you 
deserve to feel!" 

" Oh ! That 's your partiality ! " laughed Traddles. " But, indeed, I 
am in a most enviable state. I work hard, and read Law insatiably. I 
get up at five every morning, and don't mind it at all. I hide the girls in 
the day-time, and make merry with them in the evening. And I assure 
you I am quite sorry that they are going home on Tuesday, which is the 
day before the first day of Michaelmas Term. But here," said Traddles, 
breaking off in his confidence, and speaking aloud, " are the girls ! Mr. 
Copperfield, Miss Crewler — Miss Sarah — Miss Louisa — Margaret and 
Lucy ! " 

They were a perfect nest of roses ; they looked so wholesome and fresh. 
They were all pretty, and Miss Caroline was very handsome ; but there 
was a loving, cheerful, fireside quality in Sophy's bright looks, which was 
better than that, and which assured me that my friend had chosen well. 
We all sat round the fire ; while the sharp boy, who I now divined had lost 
his breath in putting the papers out, cleared them away again, and pro- 
duced the tea-things. After that, he retired for the night, shutting the 
outer-door upon us with a bang. Mrs. Traddles, with perfect pleasure 
and composure beaming from her household eyes, having made the tea, 
then quietly made the toast as she sat in a corner by the fire. 

She had seen Agnes, she told me while she was toasting. " Tom" had 
taken her down into Kent for a wedding trip, and there she had seen my 
aunt, too ; and both my aunt and Agnes were well, and they had all talked 
of nothing but me. "Tom "had never had me out of his thoughts, 
she really believed, all the time T had been away. "Tom" was the 
authority for everything. " Tom " was evidently the idol of her life ; 
never to be shaken on his pedestal by any commotion; always to be 
believed in, and done homage to with the whole faith of her heart, come 
what might. 

The deference which both she and Traddles showed towards the Beauty, 
pleased me very much. I don't know that I thought it very reasonable ; 
but I thought it very delightful, and essentially a part of their character. 
If Traddles ever for an instant missed the teaspoons that were still to be 
won, I have no doubt it was when he handed the Beauty her tea. If his 
sweet-tempered wife could have got up any self-assertion against any one, 
I am satisfied it could only have been because she was the Beauty's sister. 
A few slight indications of a rather petted and capricious manner, which I 
observed in the Beauty, were manifestly considered, by Traddles and 
his wife, as her birthright and natural endowment. If she had been born 
a Queen Bee, and they laboring Bees, they could not have been more 
satisfied of that. 

But their self-forgetfulness charmed me. Their pride in these girls, 
and their submission of themselves to all their whims, was the pleasantest 
little testimony to their own worth I could have desired to see. If 
Traddles were addressed as " a darling," once in the course of that 
evening ; and besought to bring something here, or carry something there, 



OF DAVID COPPEEJTELD. 589 

or take something up, or put something down, or find something, or fetch 
something ; he was so addressed, by one or other of his sisters-in-law, 
at least twelve times in an hour. Neither could they do anything 
without Sophy. Somebody's hair fell down, and nobody but Sophy 
could put it up. Somebody forgot how a particular tune went, and 
nobody but Sophy could hum that tune right. Somebody wanted to recal 
the name of a place in Devonshire, and only Sophy knew it. Something 
was wanted to be written home, and Sophy alone could be trusted to write 
before breakfast in the morning. Somebody broke down in a piece of 
knitting, and no one but Sophy was able to put the defaulter in the right 
direction. They were entire mistresses of the place, and Sophy and 
Traddles waited on them. How many children Sophy could have taken 
care of in her time, I can't imagine ; but she seemed to be famous for 
knowing every sort of song that ever was addressed to a child in the 
English tongue; and she sang dozens to order with the clearest little voice 
in the world, one after another (every sister issuing directions for a dif- 
ferent tune, and the Beauty generally striking in last), so that I was quite 
fascinated. The best of all was, that, in the midst of their exactions, 
all the sisters had a great tenderness and respect both for Sophy and 
Traddles. I am sure, when I took my leave, and Traddles was coming 
out to walk with me to the coffee-house, I thought I had never seen an 
obstinate head of hair, or any other head of hair, rolling about in such a 
shower of kisses. 

Altogether, it was a scene I could not help dwelling on with pleasure, 
for a long time after I got back and had wished Traddles good night. 
If I had beheld a thousand roses blowing in a top set of chambers, in 
that withered Gray's Inn, they could not have brightened it half so much. 
The idea of those Devonshire girls, among the dry law-stationers and the 
attornies' offices ; and of the tea and toast, and children's songs, in that 
grim atmosphere of pounce and parchment, red-tape, dusty wafers, ink- 
jars, brief and draft paper, law reports, writs, declarations, and bills of 
costs ; seemed almost as pleasantly fanciful as if I had dreamed that the 
Sultan's famous family had been admitted on the roll of attorneys, and 
had brought the talking bird, the singing tree, and the golden water into 
Gray's Inn Hall. Somehow, I found that I had taken leave of Traddles 
for the night, and come back to the coffee-house, with a great change in 
my despondency about him. I began to think he would get on, in 
spite of all the many orders of chief waiters in England. 

Drawing a chair before one of the coffee-room fires to think about him 
at my leisure, I gradually fell from the consideration of his happiness to 
tracing prospects in the live-coals, and to thinking, as they broke and 
changed, of the principal vicissitudes and separations that had marked my 
life. I had not seen a coal fire, since I had left England three years ago : 
though many a wood fire had I watched, as it crumbled into hoary ashes, 
and mingled with the feathery heap upon the hearth, which not inaptly 
figured to me, in my despondency, my own dead hopes. 

I could think of the past now, gravely, but not bitterly ; and could con- 
template the future in a brave spirit. Home, in its best sense, was for 
me no more. She in whom I might have inspired a dearer love, I had 
taught to be my sister. She would marry, and would have new claimants 



590 THE PERSONxiL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

on her tenderness ; and in doing it, would never know the love for her that 
had grown up in my heart. It was right that I should pay the forfeit of 
my headlong passion. What I reaped, I had sown. 

I was thinking, And had I truly disciplined my heart to this, and 
could I resolutely bear it, and calmly hold the place in her home which 
she had calmly held in mine, — when I found my eyes resting on a coun- 
tenance that might have arisen out of the fire, in its association with my 
early remembrances. 

Little Mr. Chillip the Doctor, to whose good offices I was indebted in 
the very first chapter of this history, sat reading a newspaper in the shadow 
of an opposite corner. He was tolerably stricken in years by this time ; 
but, being a mild, meek, calm little man, had worn so easily, that I thought 
he looked at that moment just as he might have looked when he sat in 
our parlor, waiting for me to be born. 

Mr. Chillip had left Blunderstone six or seven years ago, and I had 
never seen him since. He sat placidly perusing the newspaper, with his 
little head on one side, and a glass of warm sherry negus at his elbow. 
He was so extremely conciliatory in his manner that he seemed to apologise 
to the very newspaper for taking the liberty of reading it. 

I walked up to where he was sitting, and said, " How do you do, 
Mr. Chillip ? " 

He was greatly fluttered by this unexpected address from a stranger, 
and replied, in his slow way, "I thank you, sir, you are very good. Thank 
you, sir. I hope you are well." 

" You don't remember me ? " said I. 

" Well, sir," returned Mr. Chillip, smiling very meekly, and shaking his 
head as he surveyed me, " I have a kind of an impression that something 
in your countenance is familiar to me, sir ; but I couldn't lay my hand 
upon your name, really." 

" And yet you knew it, long before I knew it myself," I returned. 

" Did I indeed, sir ? " said Mr. Chillip. " Is it possible that I had the 
honor, sir, of officiating when ? " 

" Yes," said I. 

" Dear me ! " cried Mr. Chillip. " But no doubt you are a good deal 
changed since then, sir ? " 

" Probably," said I. 

" Well, sir," observed Mr. Chillip, cc I hope you '11 excuse me, if I am 
compelled to ask the favor of your name ? " 

On ^my telling him my name, he was really moved. He quite shook 
hands Vith me — which was a violent proceeding for him, his usual course 
being to slide a tepid little fish-slice, an inch or two in advance of his hip, 
and evince the greatest discomposure when anybody grappled with it. 
Even now, he put his hand in his coat pocket as soon as he could dis- 
engage it, and seemed relieved when he had got it safe back. 

" Dear me, sir ! " said Mr. Chillip, surveying me with his head on one 
side. " And it 's Mr. Copperfield, is it ? Well, sir, I think I should have 
known you, if I had taken the liberty of looking more closely at you. 
There 's a strong resemblance between you and your poor father, sir." 

" I never had the happiness of seeing my father," I observed. 

" Yery true, sir," said Mr. Chillip, in a soothing tone. " And very 



OP DAVID COPPEPPIELD. 591 

much to be deplored it was, on all accounts ! We are not ignorant, sir," 
said Mr. Chillip, slowly snaking his little head again, " down in our part 
of the country, of your fame. There must be great excitement here, sir," 
said Mr. Chillip, tapping himself on the forehead with his forefinger. 
"You must find it a trying occupation, sir ! " 

" What is your part of the country now ? " I asked, seating myself 
near him. 

" I am established within a few miles of Bury St. Edmunds, sir," said 
Mr. Chillip. " Mrs. Chillip, coming into a little property in that neigh- 
bourhood, under her father's will, I bought a practice down there, in which 
you will be glad to hear I am doing well. My daughter is growing quite 
a tall lass now, sir," said Mr. Chillip, giving his little head another little 
shake. " Her mother let down two tucks in her frocks only last week. 
Such is Time, you see, sir ! " 

As the little man put his now empty glass to his lips, when he made 
this reflection, I proposed to him to have it refilled, and I would keep him 
company with another. " Well, sir," he returned in his slow way, " it 's 
more than I am accustomed to ; but I can't deny myself the pleasure of 
your conversation. It seems but yesterday that I had the honor of 
attending you in the measles. You came through them charmingly, sir ! " 

I acknowledged this compliment, and ordered the negus, which was 
soon produced. "Quite an uncommon dissipation!" said Mr. Chillip, 
stirring it, " but I can't resist so extraordinary an occasion. You have 
no family, sir ? " 

I shook my head. 

" I was aware that you sustained a bereavement, sir, some time ago," 
said Mr. Chillip. " I heard it from your father-in-law's sister. Very 
decided character there, sir ? " 

" Why, yes," said I, " decided enough. Where did you see her, 
Mr. Chillip?" 

" Are you not aware, sir," returned Mr. Chillip, with his placidest 
smile, " that your father-in-law is again a neighbour of mine ? " 

" No," said I. 

" He is indeed, sir ! " said Mr. Chillip. " Married a young lady of that 
part, with a very good little property, poor thing. — And this action of 
the brain now, sir ? Don't you find it fatigue you ? " said Mr. Chillip, 
looking at me like an admiring Robin. 

I waived that question, and returned to the Murdstones. " I was aware 
of his being married again. Do you attend the family ? " I asked. 

" Not regularly. I have been called in," he replied. " Strong phreno- 
logical development of the organ of firmness, in Mr. Murdstone and his 
sister, sir." 

I replied with such an expressive look, that Mr. Chillip was emboldened 
by that, and the negus together, to give his head several short shakes, 
and thoughtfully exclaim, "Ah, dear me! We remember old times, Mr. 
Copperfield ! " 

" And the brother and sister are pursuing their old course, are they ? " 
said I. 

"Well, sir," replied Mr. Chillip, "a medical man, being so much in 
families, ought to have neither eyes nor ears for anything but his pro- 



:' 



592 THE TEESONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

fession. Still, I must say, they are very severe, sir : both as to this life 
and the next." 

" The next will be regulated without much reference to them, I dare 
say," I returned : " what are they doing as to this ? " 

Mr. Chillip shook his head, stirred his negus, and sipped it. 

" She was a charming woman, sir ! " he observed in a plaintive manner. 

" The present Mrs. Murdstone ? " 

" A charming woman indeed, sir," said Mr. Chillip ; "as amiable, I am 
sure, as it was possible to be ! Mrs. Chillip's opinion is, that her spirit 
has been entirely broken since her marriage, and that she is all but 
melancholy mad. And the ladies," observed Mr. Chillip, timorously, "are 
great observers, sir." 

" I suppose she was to be subdued and broken to their detestable 
mould, Heaven help her ! " said I. "And she has been." 

" Well, sir, there were violent quarrels at first, I assure you," said Mr. 
Chillip ; " but she is quite a shadow now. Would it be considered forward 
if I was to say to you, sir, in confidence, that since the sister came to 
help, the brother and sister between them have nearly reduced her to a 
state of imbecility." 

I told him I could easily believe it. 

"I have no hesitation in saying," said Mr. Chillip, fortifying himself 
with another sip of negus, " between you and me, sir, that her mother 
died of it — or that tyranny, gloom, and worry, have made Mrs. Murd- 
stone nearly imbecile. She was a lively young woman, sir, before marriage, 
and their gloom and austerity destroyed her. They go about with her, 
now, more like her keepers than her husband and sister-in-law. That was 
Mrs. Chillip's remark to me, only last week. And I assure you, sir, the 
ladies are great observers. Mrs. Chillip herself is a great observer ! " 

" Does he gloomily profess to be (I am ashamed to use the word in 
such association) religious still? " I inquired. 

" You anticipate, sir," said Mr. Chillip, his eyelids getting quite red 
with the unwonted stimulus in which he was indulging. " One of Mrs. 
Chillip's most impressive remarks. Mrs. Chillip," he proceeded, in the 
calmest and slowest manner, " quite electrified me, by pointing out that 
Mr. Murdstone sets up an image of himself, and calls it the Divine Nature. 
You might have knocked me down on the flat of my back, sir, with the 
feather of a pen, T assure you, when Mrs. Chillip said so. The ladies are 
great observers, sir ? " 

"Intuitively," said I, to his extreme delight. 

"I am very happy to receive such support in my opinion, sir," he 
rejoined. " It is not often that I venture to give a non-medical opinion, 
I assure you. Mr. Murdstone delivers public addresses sometimes, and 
it is said, — in short, sir, it is said by Mrs. Chillip, — that the darker tyrant 
he has lately been, the more ferocious is his doctrine." 

" I believe Mrs. Chillip to be perfectly right," said I. 

" Mrs. Chillip does go so far as to say," pursued the meekest of little 
men, much encouraged, " that what such people miscall their religion, is a 
vent for their bad-humors and arrogance. And do you know I must 
say, sir," he continued, mildly laying his head on one side, " that I don't 
find authority for Mr. and Miss Murdstone in the New Testament ? " 



OF DAVID COPPERPIELD. 593 

" I never found it either," said I. 

" In the meantime, sir," said Mr. Chillip, " they are much disliked ; 
and as they are very free in consigning everybody who dislikes them to 
perdition, we really have a good deal of perdition going on in our neigh- 
bourhood ! However, as Mrs. Chillip say3, sir, they undergo a continual 
punishment ; for they are turned inward, to feed upon their own hearts, 
and their own hearts are very bad feeding. Now, sir, about that brain of 
yours, if you'll excuse my returning to it. Don't you expose it to a 
good deal of excitement, sir ? " 

I found it not difficult, in the excitement of Mr. Chillip's own brain, 
under his potations of negus, to divert his attention from this topic to 
his own affairs, on which, for the next half hour, he was quite loquacious ; 
giving me to understand, among other pieces of information, that he was 
then at the Gray's Inn Coffee-house to lay his professional evidence before 
a Commission of Lunacy, touching the state of mind of a patient who had 
become deranged from excessive drinking. 

" And I assure you, sir," he said, "I am extremely nervous on such 
occasions. I could not support being what is called Bullied, sir. It 
would quite unman me. Do you know it was some time before I 
recovered the conduct of that alarming ladv, on the night of your birth, 
Mr. Copperfield?" 

I told him that I was going down to my aunt, the Dragon of that 
night, early in the morning ; and that she was one of the most tender- 
hearted and excellent of women, as he would know full well if he knew 
her better. The mere notion of the possibility of his ever seeing her 
again, appeared to terrify him. He replied, with a small pale smile, " Is she 
so, indeed, sir ? Really ? " and almost immediately called for a candle, 
and went to bed, as if he were not quite safe anywhere else. He did not 
actually stagger under the negus ; but I should think his placid little pulse 
must have made two or three more beats in a minute, than it had done 
since the great night of my aunt's disappointment, when she struck at him 
with her bonnet. 

Thoroughly tired, I went to bed too, at midnight ; passed the next day 
on the Dover coach; burst safe and sound into my aunt's old parlor 
while she was at tea (she wore spectacles now) ; and was received by her, 
and Mr Dick, and dear old Peggotty, who acted as housekeeper, with open 
arms and tears of joy. My aunt was mightily amused, when we began 
to talk composedly, by my account of my meeting with Mr. Chillip, and 
of his holding her in such dread remembrance ; and both she and Peggotty 
had a great deal to say about my poor mother's second husband, and 
"that murdering woman of a sister," — on whom I think no pain or 
penalty would have induced my aunt to bestow any Christian or Proper 
Name, or any other designation. 



a q 



594 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 



CHAPTER LX. 

AGNES. 

My aunt and I, when we were left alone, talked far into the night. 
How the emigrants never wrote home, otherwise than cheerfully and hope- 
fully; how Mr. Micawber had actually remitted divers small sums of 
money, on account of those " pecuniary liabilities," in reference to which 
he had been so business-like as between man and man; how Janet, 
returning into my aunt's service when she came back to Dover, had finally 
carried out her renunciation of mankind by entering into wedlock with a 
thriving tavern-keeper ; and how my aunt had finally set lier seal on the 
same great principle, by aiding and abetting the bride, and crowning 
the marriage-ceremony with her presence ; were among our topics — already 
more or less familiar to me through the letters I had had. Mr. Dick, as 
usual, was not forgotten. My aunt informed me how he incessantly 
occupied himself in copying everything he could lay his hands on, and kept 
King Charles the First at a respectful distance by that semblance of 
employment ; how it was one of the main joys and rewards of her life that 
he was free and happy, instead of pining in monotonous restraint; and 
how (as a novel general conclusion) nobody but she could ever fully know 
what he was. 

" And when, Trot," said my aunt, patting the back of my hand, as 
we sat in our old way before the fire, "when are you going over to 
Canterbury ? " 

" I shall get a horse, and ride over to-morrow morning, aunt, unless you 
will go with me?" 

" No ! " said my aunt, in her short abrupt way. " I mean to stay 
where I am." 

Then, I should ride, I said. I could not have come through Canterbury 
to-day without stopping, if I had been coming to anyone but her. 

She was pleased, but answered, " Tut, Trot ; my old bones would 
have kept till to-morrow ! " and softly patted my hand again, as I sat 
looking thoughtfully at the fire. 

Thoughtfully, for I could not be here once more, and so near Agnes, 
without the revival of those regrets with which I had so long been occu- 
pied. Softened regrets they might be, teaching me what I had failed to 
learn when my younger life was all before me, but not the less regrets. 
" Oh, Trot," I seemed to hear my aunt say once more ; and I understood 
her better now—" Blind, blind, blind ! " 

We both kept silence for some minutes. When I raised my eyes, I 
found that she was steadily observant of me. Perhaps she had followed 
the current of my mind ; for it seemed to me an easy one to track now, 
wilful as it had been once. 



OE DAVID COPPEREIELD. 595 

" You will find her father a white-haired old man," said my aunt, 
" though a better man in all other respects — a reclaimed man. Neither 
will you find him measuring all human interests, and joys, and sorrows, 
with his one poor little inch-rule now. Trust me, child, such things must 
shrink very much, before they can be measured off in that way." 

" Indeed they must," said I. 

" You will find her," pursued my aunt, " as good, as beautiful, as 
earnest, as disinterested, as she has always been. If I knew higher praise, 
Trot, I would bestow it on her." 

There was no higher praise for her ; no higher reproach for me. 0, how 
had I strayed so far away ! 

"If she trains the young girls whom she has about her, to be like 
herself," said my aunt, earnest even to the filling of her eyes with tears, 
" Heaven knows, her life will be well employed ! Useful and happy, as 
she said that day ! How could she be otherwise than useful and happy !" 

" Has Agnes any — " I was thinking aloud, rather than speaking. 

" Well ? Hey ? Any what ? " said my aunt, sharply. 

" Any lover," said I. 

" A score," cried my aunt, with a kind of indignant pride. " She 
might have married twenty times, my dear, since you have been gone ! " 

" No doubt," said I. " No doubt. But has she any lover who is 
worthy of her? Agnes could care for no other." 

My aunt sat musing for a little while, with her chin upon her hand. 
Slowly raising her eyes to mine, she said : 

"I suspect she has an attachment, Trot." 

"A prosperous one ? " said I. 

"Trot," returned my aunt gravely, "I can't say. I have no right to 
tell you even so much. She has never confided it to me, but I suspect it." 

She looked so attentively and anxiously at me (I even saw her tremble), 
that I felt now, more than ever, that she had followed my late thoughts. 
I summoned all the resolutions I had made, in all those many days and 
nights, and all those many conflicts of my heart. 

"If it should be so," 1 began, " and I hope it is — " 

" I don't know that it is," said my aunt curtly. " You must not be 
ruled by my suspicions. You must keep them secret. They are very 
slight, perhaps. I have no right to speak." 

" If it should be so," I repeated, " Agnes will tell me at her own good 
time. A sister to whom I have confided so much, aunt, will not be 
reluctant to confide in me. 3 ' 

My aunt withdrew her eyes from mine, as slowly as she had turned 
them upon me ; and covered them thoughtfully with her hand. By and 
by she put her other hand on my shoulder; and so we both sat, 
looking into the past, without saying another word, until we parted for 
the night. 

I rode away, early in the morning, for the scene of my old school days. 
I cannot say that I was yet quite happy, in the hope that I was gaining a 
victory over myself ; even in the prospect of so soon looking on her face 
again. 

The well-remembered ground was soon traversed, and I came into the 
quiet streets, where every stone was a boy's book to me. I went on 

Q Q 2 



596 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

foot to the old house, and went away with a heart too full to enter. 
I returned ; and looking, as I passed, through the low window of the 
turret-room where first Uriah Heep, and afterwards Mr. Micawber, had 
been wont to sit, saw that it was a little parlor now, and that there 
was no office. Otherwise the staid old house was, as to its cleanliness 
and order, still just as it had been when I first saw it. I requested the 
new maid who admitted me, to tell Miss Wickfield that a gentleman who 
waited on her from a friend abroad, was there ; and I was shown up the 
grave old staircase (cautioned of the steps I knew so well), into the unchanged 
drawing-room. The books that Agnes and I had read together, were on 
their shelves ; and the desk where I had labored at my lessons, many a 
night, stood yet at the same old corner of the table. All the little changes 
that had crept in when the Heeps were there, were changed again. 
Everything was as it used to be, in the happy time. 

I stood in a window, and looked across the ancient street at the oppo- 
site houses, recalling how I had watched them on wet afternoons, when I 
first came there ; and how I had used to speculate about the people who 
appeared at any of the windows, and had followed them with my eyes up 
and down stairs, while women went clicking along the pavement in pattens, 
and the dull rain fell in slanting lines, and poured out of the waterspout 
yonder, and flowed into the road. The feeling with which I used to watch 
the tramps, as they came into the town on those wet evenings, at dusk, 
and limped past, with their bundles drooping over their shoulders at the 
ends of sticks, came freshly back to me; fraught, as then, with the smell of 
damp earth, and wet leaves and briar, and the sensation of the very airs 
that blew upon me in my own toilsome journey. 

The opening of the little door in the panneled wall made me start and 
turn. Her beautiful serene eyes met mine as she came towards me. 
She stopped and laid her hand upon her bosom, and I caught her in 
my arms. 

" Agnes ! my dear girl ! I have come too suddenly upon you." 
" No, no ! I am so rejoiced to see you, Trotwood ! " 
" Dear Agnes, the happiness it is to me, to see you once again ! " 
I folded her to my heart, and, for a little w T hile, we were both silent. 
Presently w r e sat down, side by side; and her angel-face was turned upon 
me with the welcome I had dreamed of, w r aking and sleeping, for whole 
years. 

She was so true, she was so beautiful, she was so good, — I owed her so 
much gratitude, she was so dear to me, that I could find no utterance 
for what I felt. I tried to bless her, tried to thank her, tried to tell her 
(as I had often done in letters) what an influence she had upon me ; but 
all my efforts were in vain. My love and joy were dumb. 

With her own sweet tranquillity, she calmed my agitation ; led me back 
to the time of our parting ; spoke to me of Emily, whom she had visited, 
in secret, many times ; spoke to me tenderly of Dora's grave. With the 
unerring instinct of her noble heart, she touched the chords of my 
memory so softly and harmoniously, that not one jarred within me ; I 
could listen to the sorrowful, distant music, and desire to shrink from 
nothing it awoke. How could I, when, blended with it all, was her dear 
self, the better angel of my life ? 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 597 

" And you, Agnes," I said, by and by. " Tell me of yourself. You 
kave hardly ever told me of your own life, in all this lapse of time ! " 

"What should I tell? " she answered, with her radiant smile. "Papa 
is well. You see us here, quiet in our own home ; our anxieties set at 
rest, our home restored to us ; and knowing that, dear Trot wood, you 
know all." 

"All, Agnes?" said I. 

She looked at me, with some fluttering wonder in her face. 

" Is there nothing else, Sister ? " I said. 

Her color, which had just now faded, returned, and faded again. She 
smiled ; with a quiet sadness, I thought ; and shook her head. 

I had sought to lead her to what my aunt had hinted at ; for, sharply 
painful to me as it must be to receive that confidence, I was to discipline 
my heart, and do my duty to her. I saw, however, that she was uneasy, 
and I let it pass. 

"You have much to do, dear Agnes ? " 

" With my school ? " said she, looking up again, in all her bright 
composure. 

" Yes. It is laborious, is it not? " 
. " The labor is so pleasant," she returned, " that it is scarcely grateful in 
me to call it by that name." 

" Nothing good is difficult to you," said I. 

Her color came and went once more ; and once more, as she bent her 
head, I saw the same sad smile. 

" You will wait and see papa," said Agnes, cheerfully, " and pass the 
day with us ? Perhaps you will sleep in your own room ? We always 
call it yours." 

I could not do that, having promised to ride back to my aunt's, at 
night ; but I would pass the day there, joyfully. 

" I must be a prisoner for a little while," said Agnes, " but here are 
the old books, Trotwood, and the old music." 

" Even the old flowers are here," said I, looking round ; "or the 
old kinds." 

" I have found a pleasure," returned Agnes, smiling, " while you have 
been absent, in keeping every thing as it used to be when we were 
children. Por we were very happy then, I think." 

" Heaven knows we were ! " said I. 

" And every little thing that has reminded me of my brother," said 
Agnes, with her cordial eyes turned cheerfully upon me, " has been a welcome 
companion. Even this," showing me the basket-trifle, full of keys, still 
hanging at her side, " seems to jingle a kind of old tune ! " 

She smiled again, and went out at the door by which she had come. 

It was for me to guard this sisterly affection with religious care. 
It was all that I had left myself, and it was a treasure. If I once shook 
the foundations of the sacred confidence and usage, in virtue of which it 
was given to me, it was lost, and could never be recovered. I set this 
steadily before myself. The better I loved her, the more it behoved 
me never to forget it. 

I walked through the streets ; and, once more seeing my old adversary 
the butcher — now a constable, with his staff hanging up in the shop — 
went down to look at the place where I had fought him ; and there medi- 



59S THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

tated on Miss Shepherd and the eldest Miss Larkins, and all the idle 
loves and likings, and dislikings, of that time. Nothing seemed to have 
survived that time but Agnes ; and she, ever a star above me, was brighter 
and higher. 

When I returned, Mr. Wickfield had come home,' from a garden he 
had, a couple of miles or so out of the town, where he now employed 
himself almost every day. I found him as my aunt had described him. We 
sat down to dinner, with some half-dozen little girls; and he seemed but 
the shadow of his handsome picture on the wall. 

The tranquillity and peace belonging, of old, to that quiet ground in 
my memory, pervaded it again. When dinner was done, Mr. Wickfield 
taking no wine, and I desiring none, we went up stairs ; where Agnes and 
her little charges sang and played, and worked. After tea the children 
left us ; and we three sat together, talking of the by-gone days. 

" My part in them," said Mr. Wickfield, shaking his white head, "has 
much matter for regret — for deep regret, and deep contrition, Trotwood, 
you well know. Eut I would not cancel it, if it were in my power." 

I could readily believe that, looking at the face beside him. 

" I should cancel with it," he pursued, " such patience and devotion, 
such fidelity, such a child's love, as I must not forget, no ! even to forget 
myself." 

" I understand you, sir," I softly said. " I hold it — I have always held 
it — in veneration." 

" But no one knows, not even you," he returned, " how much she has 
done, how much she has undergone, how hard she has striven. Dear 
Agnes ! " 

She had put her hand entreatingiy on his arm, to stop him ; and was 
very, very, pale. 

" Well, well!" he said with a sigh, dismissing, as I then saw, some 
trial she had borne, or was yet to bear, in connexion with what my aunt 
had told me. " Well ! I have never told you, Trotwood, of her mother. 
Has any one ? " 

" Never, sir." 

" It 's not much — though it was much to suffer. She married me in 
opposition to her father's wish, and he renounced her. She prayed him 
to forgive her, before my Agnes came into this world. He was a very 
hard man, and her mother had long been dead. He repulsed her. He 
broke her heart." 

Agnes leaned upon his shoulder, and stole her arm about his neck. 

" She had an affectionate and gentle heart," he said; "and it was 
broken. I knew its tender nature very well. No one could, if I did not. 
She loved me dearly, but was never happy. She was always laboring, in 
secret, under this distress ; and being delicate and downcast at the time 
of his last repulse — for it was not the first, by many — pined away and 
died. She left me Agnes, two weeks old ; and the grey hair that you 
recollect me w r ith, when you first came." 

He kissed Agnes on her cheek. 

" My love for my dear child was a diseased love, but my mind was 
all unhealthy then. I say no more of that. I am not speaking of myself, 
Trotwood, but of her mother, and of her. If I give you any clue to what 
I am, or to what I have been, you will unravel it, I know. What Agnes 



OF DAVID C0PPE11FIELD. 599 

is, I need not say. I have always read something of her poor mother's 
story, in her character; and so I tell it you to-night, when we three 
are again together, after such great changes. I have told it all." 

His bowed head, and her angel face and filial duty, derived a more 
pathetic meaning from it than they had had before. If I had wanted 
anything by which to mark this night of our reunion, I should have 
found it in this. 

Agnes rose up from her father's side, before long ; and going softly 
to her piano, played some of the old airs to which we had often listened 
in that place. 

" Have you any intention of going away again ? " Agnes asked me, as 
I was standing by. 

" What does my sister say to that ? " 

" I hope not." 

" Then I have no such intention, Agnes." 

" I think you ought not, Trotwood, since yon ask me," she said, mildly. 
"Your growing reputation and success enlarge your power of doing good; 
and if /could spare my brother," with her eyes upon me, "perhaps the 
time could not." 

" What I am, you have made me, Agnes. You should know best." 

" /made you, Trotwood? " 

" Yes ! Agnes, my dear girl ! " I said, bending over her. " I tried to 
tell you, when we met to-day, something that has been in my thoughts 
since Dora died. You remember, when you came down to me in our little 
room — pointing upward, Agnes? " 

" Oh, Trotwood ! " she returned, her eyes filled with tears. " So 
loving, so confiding, and so young ! Can I ever forget ? " 

" As you were then, my sister, I have often thought since, you have 
ever been to me. Ever pointing upward, Agnes ; ever leading me to 
something better ; ever directing me to higher things ! " 

She only shook her head; through her tears I saw the same sad 
quiet smile. 

" And I am so grateful to you for it, Agnes, so bound to you, that 
there is no name for the affection of my heart. I want you to know, yet 
don't know how to tell you, that all my life long I shall look up to you, 
and be guided by you, as I have been through the darkness that is past. 
Whatever betides, whatever new ties you may form, whatever changes may 
come between us, I shall always look to you, and love you, as I do now, 
and have always done. You will always be my solace and resource, as you 
have always been. Until I die, my dearest sister, I shall see you always 
before me, pointing upward ! " 

She put her hand in mine, and told me she was proud of me, and of 
what I said ; although I praised her very far beyond her worth. Then, 
she went on softly playing, but without removing her eyes from me. 

"Do you know, what I have heard to-night, Agnes," said I, " strangely 
seems to be a part of the feeling with which I regarded you when I saw 
you first — with which I sat beside you in my rough school-days ? " 

"You knew I had no mother," she replied with a smile, "and felt 
kindly towards me." 

" More than that, Agnes. I knew, almost as if I had known this story, 



600 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

that there was something inexplicably gentle and softened, surrounding 
you ; something that might have been sorrowful in some one else (as I can 
now understand it was), but was not so in you." 

She softly played on, looking at me still. 

" Will you laugh at my cherishing such fancies, Agnes ? " 

"No!" 

" Or at my saying that I really believe I felt, even then, that you 
could be faithfully affectionate against all discouragement, and never cease 
to be so, until you ceased to live ? — Will you laugh at such a dream ? " 

" Oh, no ! Oh, no ! " 

For an instant, a distressful shadow crossed her face ; but, even in the 
start it gave me, it was gone ; and she was playing on, and looking at me 
with her own calm smile. 

As I rode back in the lonely night, the wind going by me like a 
restless memory, I thought of this, and feared she was not happy. / was 
not happy ; but, thus far, I had faithfully set the seal upon the Past, and, 
thinking of her, pointing upward, thought of her as pointing to that 
sky above me, where, in the mystery to .come, I might yet love her with 
a love unknown on earth, and tell her what the strife had been within 
me when I loved her here. 



CHAPTER LXI. 

I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS. 

Tor a time — at all events until my book should be completed, 
which would be the work of several months — I took up my abode in my 
aunt's house at Dover ; and there, sitting in the window from which I had 
looked out at the moon upon the sea, when that roof first gave me shelter, 
I quietly pursued my task. 

In pursuance of my intention of referring to my own fictions only when 
their course should incidentally connect itself with the progress of my 
story, I do not enter on the aspirations, the delights, anxieties, and 
triumphs, of my art. That I truly devoted myself to it with my strongest 
earnestness, and bestowed upon it every energy of my soul, I have already 
said. If the books I have written be of any worth, they will supply the 
rest. I shall otherwise have written to poor purpose, and the rest will be 
of interest to no one. 

Occasionally, I went to London ; to lose myself in the swarm of life 
there, or to consult with Traddles on some business point. He had 
managed for me, in my absence, with the soundest judgment ; and my 
worldly affairs were prospering. As my notoriety began to bring upon 
me an enormous quantity of letters from people of whom I had no know- 
ledge — chiefly about nothing, and extremely difficult to answer — I agreed 



OP DAVID COPPERFIELD . 601 

with Traddles to have my name painted up on his door. There, the devoted 
postmen on that beat delivered bushels of letters for me ; and there, at 
intervals, I labored through them, like a Home Secretary of State without 
the salary. 

Among this correspondence, there dropped in, every now and then, 
an obliging proposal from one of the numerous outsiders always lurking 
about the Commons, to practise under cover of my name (if I would take 
the necessary steps remaining to make a proctor of myself), and pay me 
a percentage on the profits. But I declined these offers ; being already 
aware that there were plenty of such covert practitioners in existence, and 
considering the Commons quite bad enough, without my doing anything 
to make it worse. 

The girls had gone home, when my name burst into bloom on Traddles's 
door ; and the sharp boy looked, all day, as if he had never heard of 
Sophy, shut up in a back room, glancing down from her work into a 
sooty little strip of garden with a pump in it. But, there I always found 
her, the same bright housewife ; often humming her Devonshire ballads 
when no strange foot was coming up the stairs, and blunting the sharp 
boy in his official closet with melody. 

I wondered, at first, why I so often found Sophy writing in a copy-book ; 
and why she always shut it up when I appeared, and hurried it into the 
table-drawer. But the secret soon came out. One day, Traddles (who 
had just come home through the drizzling sleet from Court) took a 
paper out of his desk, and asked me what I thought of that handwriting ? 

" Oh, dont, Tom ! " cried Sophy, who was warming his slippers before 
the fire. 

" My dear," returned Tom, in a delighted state, " why not ? What 
do you say to that writing, Copperfield ? " 

" It 's extraordinarily legal and formal," said I. " I don't think I ever 
saw such a stiff hand." 

" Not like a lady's hand, is it ? " said Traddles. 

" A lady's ! " I repeated. " Bricks and mortar are more like a lady's 
hand ! " 

Traddles broke into a rapturous laugh, and informed me that it was 
Sophy's writing ; that Sophy had vowed and declared he would need a 
copying-clerk soon, and she would be that clerk ; that she had acquired this 
hand from a pattern ; and that she could throw off — I forget how many 
folios an hour. Sophy was very much confused by my being told all this, 
and said that when " Tom " was made a judge he wouldn't be so ready 
to proclaim it. Which " Tom " denied ; averring that he should always 
be equally proud of it, under all circumstances. 

" What a thoroughly good and charming wife she is, my dear Traddles ! " 
said I, when she had gone away, laughing. 

" My dear Copperfield," returned Traddles, " she is, without any excep- 
tion, the dearest girl ! The way she manages this place ; her punctuality, 
domestic knowledge, economy, and order; her cheerfulness, Copperfield ! " 

" Indeed, you have reason to commend her ! " I returned. " You 
are a happy fellow. I believe you make yourselves, and each other, two 
of the happiest people in the world." 

" I am sure we are two of the happiest people," returned Traddles. 



602 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" I admit that, at all events. Bless my soul, when I see her getting up 
by candle-light on these dark mornings, busying herself in the day's 
arrangements, going out to market before the clerks come into the Inn, 
caring for no weather, devising the most capital little dinners out of the 
plainest materials, making puddings and pies, keeping everything in its 
right place, always so neat and ornamental herself, sitting up at night with 
me if it 's ever so late, sweet-tempered and encouraging always, and all for 
me, I positively sometimes can't believe it, Copperfield ! " 

He was tender of the very slippers she had been warming, as he put 
them on, and stretched his feet enjoyingly upon the fender. 

" I positively sometimes can't believe it," said Traddles. " Then, our 
pleasures ! Dear me, they are inexpensive, but they are quite wonderful ! 
When we are at home here, of an evening, and shut the outer door, and 
draw those curtains — which she made — where could we be more snug ? 
When it 's fine, and we go out for a walk in the evening, the streets abound 
in enjoyment for us. We look into the glittering windows of the jewellers' 
shops ; and I show Sophy which of the diamond-eyed serpents, coiled up on 
white satin rising grounds, I would give her if I could afford it ; and 
Sophy shows me which of the gold watches that are capped' and jewelled 
and engine-turned, and possessed of the horizontal lever-escape-movement, 
and all sorts of things, she would buy for me if she could afford it ; and 
we pick out the spoons and forks, fish-slices, butter-knives, and sugar- 
tongs, we should both prefer if we could both afford it ; and really we go 
away as if we had got them ! Then, when we stroll into the squares, and 
great streets, and see a house to let, sometimes we look up at it, and say, 
how would that do, if I was made a judge ? And we parcel it out — such 
a room for us, such rooms for the girls, and so forth ; until we settle to our 
satisfaction that it would do, or it wouldn't do, as the case may be. 
Sometimes, we go at half-price to the pit of the theatre — the very smell of 
which is cheap, in my opinion, at the money — and there we thoroughly 
enjoy the play : which Sophy believes every word of, and so do I. In 
walking home, perhaps we buy a little bit of something at a cook's-shop, or 
a little lobster at the fishmonger's, and bring it here, and make a splendid 
supper, chatting about what we have seen. Now, you know, Copperfield, 
if I was Lord Chancellor, we couldn't do this ! " 

" You would do something, whatever you were, my dear Traddles," 
thought I, " that would be pleasant and amiable ! And by the way," I 
said aloud, " I suppose you never draw any skeletons now ? " 

" Keally," replied Traddles, laughing, and reddening, " I can't wholly 
deny that I do, my dear Copperfield. Eor, being in one of the back rows 
of the King's Bench the other day, with a pen in my hand, the fancy came 
into my head to try how I had preserved that accomplishment. And I 
am afraid there 's a skeleton — in a wig — on the ledge of the desk." 

After we had both laughed heartily, Traddles wound up by looking with 
a smile at the fire, and saying, in his forgiving way, " Old Creakle !" 

" I have a letter from that old — Eascal here," said I. Tor I never 
was less disposed to forgive him the way he used to batter Traddles, 
than when I saw Traddles so ready to forgive him himself. 

" From Creakle the schoolmaster ? " exclaimed Traddles. w No ! " 

"Among the persons who are attracted to me in my rising fame and 



OP DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 603 

fortune," said I, looking over nay letters, " and who discover that they 
were always much attached to me, is the self-same Creakle. He is not a 
schoolmaster now, Traddles. He is retired. He is a Middlesex 
Magistrate." 

I thought Traddles might be surprised to hear it, but he was not 
so at all. 

" How do you suppose he comes to be a Middlesex Magistrate ? " 
said I. 

" Oh dear me ! " replied Traddles, " it would be very difficult to answer 
that question. Perhaps he voted for somebody, or lent money to somebody, 
or bought something of somebody, or otherwise obliged somebody, or 
jobbed for somebody, who knew somebody who got the lieutenant of the 
county to nominate him for the commission." 

" On the commission he is, at any rate," said I. " And he writes to 
me here, that he will be glad to show me, in operation, the only true 
system of prison discipline ; the only unchallengeable way of making sincere 
and lasting converts and penitents — which, you know, is by solitary 
confinement. What do you say ? " 

"To the system? " inquired Traddles, looking grave. 

" No. To my accepting the offer, and your going with me?" 

" I don't object," said Traddles. 

" Then I '11 write to say so. You remember (to say nothing of our 
treatment) this same Creakle turning his son out of doors, I suppose, 
and the life he used to lead his wife and daughter ? " 

" Perfectly," said Traddles. 

" Yet, if you Tl read his letter, you '11 find he is the tenderest of men 
to prisoners convicted of the whole calendar of felonies," said I> "though 
I can't find that his tenderness extends to any other class of created 
beings." 

Traddles shrugged his shoulders, and was not at all surprised. I had 
not expected him to be, and was not surprised myself; or my observation of 
similar practical satires would have been but scanty. We arranged the time 
of our visit, and I wrote accordingly to Mr. Creakle that evening. 

On the appointed day — I think it was the next day, but no matter — 
Traddles and I repaired to the prison where Mr. Creakle was powerful. 
It was an immense and solid building, erected at a vast expense. I could 
not help thinking, as we approached the gate, what an uproar would have 
been made in the country, if any deluded man had proposed to spend one 
half the money it had cost, on the erection of an industrial school for the 
young, or a house of refuge for the deserving old. 

In an office that might have been on the ground-floor of the Tower of 
Babel, it was so massively constructed, we were presented to our old 
schoolmaster ; who was one of a group, composed of two or three of the 
busier sort of magistrates, and some visitors they had brought. He received 
me, like a man who had formed my mind in bygone years, and had always 
loved me tenderly. On my introducing Traddles, Mr. Creakle expressed, in 
like manner, but in an inferior degree, that he had always been Traddles's 
guide, philosopher, and friend. Our venerable instructor was a great deal 
older, and not improved in appearance. His face was as fiery as ever ; 
his eyes were as small, and rather deeper set. The scanty, wet-looking 



604 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

grey hair, by which I remembered him, was almost gone ; and the thick 
veins in his bald head were none the more agreeable to look at. 

After some conversation among these gentlemen, from which I might 
have supposed that there was nothing in the world to be legitimately 
taken into account but the supreme comfort of prisoners, at any expense, 
and nothing on the wide earth to be done outside prison-doors, we began 
our inspection. It being then just dinner-time, we went, first into the 
great kitchen, where every prisoner's dinner was in course of being set 
out separately (to be handed to him in his cell), with the regularity and 
precision of clock-work. I said aside, to Traddles, that I wondered 
whether it occurred to anybody, that there was a striking contrast between 
these plentiful repasts of choice quality, and the dinners, not to say of 
paupers, but of soldiers, sailors, laborers, the great bulk of the honest, 
working community ; of whom not one man in five hundred ever dined half 
so well. But I learned that the " system " required high living ; and, in 
short, to dispose of the system, once for all, I found that on that head 
and on all others, "the system " put an end to all doubts, and disposed of 
all anomalies. Nobody appeared to have the least idea that there was any 
other system, but the system, to be considered. 

As we were going through some of the magnificent passages, I inquired 
of Mr. Creakle and his friends what were supposed to be the main 
advantages of this all-governing and universally over-riding system? I 
found them to be the perfect isolation of prisoners — so that no one man 
in confinement there, knew anything about another ; and the reduction of. 
prisoners to a wholesome state of mind, leading to sincere contrition and 
repentance. 

Now, it- struck me, when we began to visit individuals in their cells, 
and to traverse the passages in which those cells were, and to have the 
manner of the going to chapel and so forth, explained to us, that there was 
a strong probability of the prisoners knowing a good deal about each other, 
and of their carrying on a pretty complete system of intercourse. This, at 
the time I write, has been proved, I believe, to be the case ; but, as it 
would have been flat blasphemy against the system to have hinted such a 
doubt then, I looked out for the penitence as diligently as I could. 

And here again, I had great misgivings. I found as prevalent a 
fashion in the form of the penitence, as I had left outside in the 
forms of the coats and waistcoats in the windows of the tailors' shops. 
I found a vast amount of profession, varying very little in character : 
varying very little (which I thought exceedingly suspicious), even in 
words. I found a great many foxes, disparaging whole vineyards of 
inaccessible grapes ; but I found very few foxes whom I would have 
trusted within reach of a bunch. Above all, I found that the most pro- 
fessing men were the greatest objects of interest ; and that their conceit, 
their vanity, their want of excitement, and their love of deception (which 
many of them possessed to an almost incredible extent, as their histories 
showed), all prompted to these professions, and were all gratified by them. 

However, I heard so repeatedly, in the course of our goings to and fro, 
of a certain Number Twenty Seven, who was the Favorite, and who really 
appeared to be a Model Prisoner, that I resolved to suspend my judgment 
until I should see Twenty Seven. Twenty Eight, I understood, was also 




1 



I 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 605 

a bright particular star; but it was his misfortune to have his glory a little 
dimmed by the extraordinary lustre of Twenty Seven. I heard so much 
of Twenty Seven, of his pious admonitions to everybody around him, and 
of the beautiful letters he constantly wrote to his mother (whom he 
seemed to consider in a very bad way), that I became quite impatient to 
see him. 

I had to restrain my impatience for some time, on account of Twenty 
Seven being reserved for a concluding effect. But, at last, we came to the 
door of his cell; and Mr. Creakle, looking through a little hole in it, 
reported to us, in a state of the greatest admiration, that he was reading 
a Hymn Book. 

There was such a rush of heads immediately, to see Number Twenty 
Seven reading his Hymn Book, that the little hole was blocked up, six or 
seven heads deep. To remedy this inconvenience, and give us an oppor- 
tunity of conversing with Twenty Seven in all his purity, Mr. Creakle 
directed the door of the cell to be unlocked, and Twenty Seven to be 
invited out into the passage. This was done ; and whom should Traddles 
and I then behold, to our amazement, in this converted Number Twenty 
Seven, but Uriah Heep ! 

He knew us directly; and said, as he came out — with the old writhe, — 

" How do you do, Mr. Copperfield ? How do you do, Mr. Traddles ? " 

This recognition caused a general admiration in the party. I rather 
thought that everyone was struck by his not being proud, and taking- 
notice of us. 

" Well, Twenty Seven," said Mr. Creakle, mournfully admiring him. 
" How do you find yourself to-day ? " 

"lam very umble, sir ! " replied Uriah Heep. 

" You are always so, Twenty Seven," said Mr. Creakle. 

Here, another gentleman asked, with extreme anxiety : " Are you quite 
comfortable ? " 

" Yes, I thank you, sir ! " said Uriah Heep, looking in that direction. 
" Ear more comfortable here, than ever I was outside. I see my follies 
now, sir. That 's Avhat makes me comfortable." 

Several gentlemen were much affected ; and a third questioner, forcing 
himself to the front, inquired with extreme feeling : " How do vou find 
the beef?" 

" Thank you, sir," replied Uriah, glancing in the new direction of this 
voice, "it was tougher yesterday than I could wish ; but it 's my duty to 
bear. I have committed follies, gentlemen," said Uriah, looking round 
with a meek smile, "and I ought to bear the consequences without 
repining." 

A murmur, partly of gratification at Twenty Seven's celestial state of 
mind, and partly of indignation against the Contractor who had given him 
any cause of complaint (a note of which was immediately made by 
Mr. Creakle), having subsided, Twenty Seven stood in the midst of us, as if 
he felt himself the principal object of merit in a highly meritorious museum. 
That we, the neophytes, might have an excess of light shining upon us all 
at once, orders were given to let out Twenty Eight. 

I had been so much astonished already, that I only felt a kind of resigned 
wonder when Mr. Littimer walked forth, reading a good book ! 



THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

" Twenty Eight," said a gentleman in spectacles, who had not yet 
spoken, "you complained last week, my good fellow, of the cocoa. How 
has it been since ? " 

" I thank you, sir," said Mr. Littimer, " it has been better made. If I 
might take the liberty of saying so, sir, I don't think the milk which is 
boiled with it is quite genuine ; but I am aware, sir, that there is great 
adulteration of milk, in London, and that the article in a pure state is 
difficult to be obtained." 

It appeared to me that the gentleman in spectacles backed his Twenty 
Eight against Mr. Creakle's Twenty Seven, for each of them took his own 
man in hand. 

" What is your state of mind, Twenty Eight ? " said the questioner in 
spectacles. 

" I thank you, sir," returned Mr. Littimer ; " I see my follies now, sir. 
I am a good deal troubled when I think of the sins of my former com- 
panions, sir ; but I trust they may find forgiveness." 

"You are quite happy yourself?" said the questioner, nodding 
encouragement. 

" I am much obliged to you, sir," returned Mr. Littimer. " Per- 
fectly so." 

" Is there anything at all on your mind, now ? " said the questioner. 
" If so, mention it, Twenty Eight." 

" Sir," said Mr. Littimer, without looking up, " if my eyes have not 
deceived me, there is a gentleman present who was acquainted with me in 
my former life. It may be profitable to that gentleman to know, sir, that 
I attribute my past follies, entirely to having lived a thoughtless life in 
the service of young men ; and to having allowed myself to be led by 
them into weaknesses, which I had not the strength to resist. I hope 
that gentleman will take warning, sir, and will not be offended at my 
freedom. It is for his good. I am conscious of my own past follies. 
I hope he may repent of all the wickedness and sin, to which he has been 
a party." 

I observed that several gentlemen were shading their eyes, each, with 
one hand, as if they had just come into church. 

"This does you credit, Twenty Eight," returned the questioner. 
" I should have expected it of you. Is there anything else ? " 

" Sir," returned Mr. Littimer, slightly lifting up his eyebrows, but not 
his eyes, " there was a young woman who fell into dissolute courses, that 
I endeavoured to save, sir, but could not rescue. I beg that gentleman, 
if he has it in his power, to inform that young woman from me that I 
forgive her her bad conduct towards myself; and that I call her to 
repentance — if he will be so good." 

" I have no doubt, Twenty Eight," returned the questioner, " that the 
gentleman you refer to feels very strongly — as we all must — what you 
have so properly said. We will not detain you." 

" I thank you, sir," said Mr. Littimer. " Gentlemen, I wish you a 
good day, and hoping you and your families will also see your wickedness, 
and amend ! " 

With this, Number Twenty Eight retired, after a glance between him 
and Uriah] as if they were not altogether unknown to each other, through 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 607 

some medium of communication ; and a murmur went round the group, 
as his door shut upon him, that he was a most respectable man, and a 
beautiful case. 

" Now, Twenty Seven," said Mr. Creakle, entering on a clear stage with 
Ms man, " is there anything that any one can do for you ? If so, men- 
tion it." 

" I would umbly ask, sir," returned Uriah, with a jerk of his malevolent 
head, "for leave to write again to mother." 

" It shall certainly be granted," said Mr. Creakle. 

" Thank you, sir ! I am anxious about mother. I am afraid she ain't 
safe." 

Somebody incautiously asked, what from ? But there was a scandalised 
whisper of " Hush ! " 

" Immortally safe, sir," returned Uriah, writhing in the direction of 
the voice. " I should wish mother to be got into my state. I never 
should have been got into my present state if I hadn't come here. I 
wish mother had come here. It would be better for everybody, if they 
got took up, and was brought here." 

This sentiment gave unbounded satisfaction — greater satisfaction, I 
think, than anything that had passed yet. 

" Before I come here," said Uriah, stealing a look at us, as if he would 
have blighted the outer world to which we belonged, if he could, " I was 
given to follies ; but now I am sensible of my follies. There's a deal of 
sin outside. There 's a deal of sin in mother. There 's nothing but sin 
everywhere — except here." 

" You are quite changed ? " said Mr. Creakle. 

" Oh dear, yes, sir ! " cried this hopeful penitent. 

" You wouldn't relapse, if you were going out ? " asked somebody else. 

" Oh de-ar no, sir ! " 

"Well!" said Mr. Creakle, "this is very gratifying. You have 
addressed Mr. Copperfleld, Twenty Seven. Do you wish to say anything 
further to him ? " 

" You knew me, a long time before I came here and was changed, Mr. 
Copperfield," said Uriah, looking at me ; and a more villainous look I 
never saw, even on his visage. " You knew me when, in spite of my 
follies, I was umble among them that was proud, and meek among them 
that was violent — you was violent to me yourself, Mr. Copperfield. Once, 
you struck me a blow in the face, you know." 

General commiseration. Several indignant glances directed at me. 

" But I forgive you, Mr. Copperfield," said Uriah, making his forgiving 
nature the subject of a most impious and awful parallel, which I shall not 
record. " I forgive everybody. It would ill become me to bear malice. 
I freely forgive you, and I hope you '11 curb your passions in future. I 
hope Mr.W. will repent, and Miss W., and all of that sinful lot. You've 
been visited with affliction, and I hope it may do you good; but you'd 
better have come here. Mr. W. had better have come here, and Miss W. 
too. The best wish I could give you, Mr. Copperfield, and give all of you 
gentlemen, is, that you could be took up and brought here. When I 
think of my past follies, and my present state, I am sure it would be best 
for you. I pity all who ain't brought here ! " 



608 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

He sneaked back into his cell, amidst a little chorus of approbation ; 
and both Traddles and I experienced a great relief when he was locked in. 

It was a characteristic feature in this repentance, that I was fain to ask 
what these two men had done, to be there at all. That appeared to be 
the last thing about which they had anything to say. I addressed myself 
to one of the two warders, who, I suspected, from certain latent indications 
in their faces, knew pretty well what all this stir was worth. 

" Do you know," said I, as we walked along the passage, " what felony 
was Number Twenty Seven's last 'folly?' " 

The answer was, that it was a Bank case. 

"A fraud on the Bank of England ? " I asked. 

"Yes, sir. Fraud, forgery, and conspiracy. He and some others. 
He set the others on. It was a deep plot for a large sum. Sentence, 
transportation for life. Twenty Seven was the knowingest bird of the lot, 
and had very nearly kept himself safe ; but not quite. The Bank was just 
able to put salt upon his tail — and only just." 

" Do you know Twenty Eight's offence? " 

" Twenty Eight," returned my informant, speaking throughout in a 
low tone, and looking over his shoulder as we walked along the passage, 
to guard himself from being overheard, in such an unlawful reference to 
these Immaculates, by Creakle and the rest ; " Twenty Eight (also trans- 
portation) got a place, and robbed a young master of a matter of two 
hundred and fifty pounds in money and valuables, the night before they 
were going abroad. I particularly recollect his case, from his being took 
by a dwarf. 

" A what ? " 

" A little woman. I have forgot her name." 

" Not Mowcher ? " 

" That 's it ! He had eluded pursuit, and was going to America in a 
flaxen wig, and whiskers, and such a complete disguise as never you see 
in all your born days ; when the little woman, being in Southampton, met 
him walking along the street — picked him out with her sharp eye in a 
moment — ran betwixt his legs to upset him — and held on to him like 
grim Death." 

" Excellent Miss Mowcher ! " cried I. 

" You 'd have said so, if you had seen her, standing on a chair in the 
witness-box at his trial, as I did," said my friend. "He cut her face 
right open, and pounded her in the most brutal manner, when she took 
him ; but she never loosed her hold till he was locked up. She held so tight 
to him, in fact, that the officers were obliged to take 'em both together. 
She gave her evidence in the gamest way, and was highly complimented 
by the Bench, and cheered right home to her lodgings. She said in 
Court that she 'd have took him single-handed (on account of what she knew 
concerning him), if he had been Samson. And it 's my belief she would ! " 

It was mine too, and I highly respected Miss Mowcher for it. 

We had now seen all there was to see. It would have been in vain to 
represent to such a man as the Worshipful Mr. Creakle, that Twenty 
Seven and Twenty Eight were perfectly consistent and unchanged ; that 
exactly what they were then, they had always been ; that the hypocritical 
knaves were just the subjects to make that sort of profession in such a 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 609 

place ; that they knew its market- value at least as well as we did, in the 
immediate service it would do them when they were expatriated ; in a word, 
that it was a rotten, hollow, painfully-suggestive piece of business altogether. 
We left them to their system and themselves, and went home wondering. 

" Perhaps it 's a good thing, Traddles," said I, " to have an unsound 
Hobby ridden hard ; for it 's the sooner ridden to death." 

" I hope so," replied Traddles. 



CHAPTER LXII. 

A LIGHT SHINES ON MY WAY. 



The year came round to Christmas-time, and I had been at home above 
two months. I had seen Agnes frequently. However loud the general 
voice might be in giving me encouragement, and however fervent the 
emotions and endeavours to which it roused me, I heard her lightest word 
of praise as I heard nothing else. 

At least once a week, and sometimes oftener, I rode over there, and 
passed the evening. I usually rode back at night ; for the old unhappy 
sense was always hovering about me now — most sorrowfully when I left her 
— and I was glad to be up and out, rather than wandering over the past 
in weary wakefulness or miserable dreams. I wore away the longest part 
of many wild sad nights, in those rides ; reviving, as I went, the thoughts 
that had occupied me in my long absence. 

Or, if I were to say rather that I listened to the echoes of those thoughts, 
I should better express the truth. They spoke to me from afar off. I 
had put them at a distance, and accepted my inevitable place. When I 
read to Agnes what I wrote ; when I saw her listening face ; moved her to 
smiles or tears ; and heard her cordial voice so earnest on the shadowy 
events of that imaginative world in which I lived ; I thought what a fate 
mine might have been — but only thought so, as I had thought after I was 
married to Dora, what I could have wished my wife to be. 

My duty to Agnes, who loved me with a love, which, if I disquieted, 
I wronged most selfishly and poorly, and could never restore ; my matured 
assurance that I, who had worked out my own destiny, and won what 
I had impetuously set my heart on, had no right to murmur, and must 
bear ; comprised what I felt and what I had learned. But I loved her : 
and now it even became some consolation to me, vaguely to conceive a distant 
day when I might blamelessly avow it; when all this should be over; when 
I could say " Agnes, so it was when I came home ; and now I am old, 
and I never have loved since ! " 

She did not once show me any change in herself. What she always had 
been to me, she still was; wholly unaltered. 

Between my aunt and me there had been something, in this connexion, 
since the night of my return, which I cannot call a restraint, or an avoidance 
of the subject, so much as an implied understanding that we thought of it 

R R, 



610 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

together, but did not shape our thoughts into words. When, according 
to our old custom, we sat before the fire at night, we often fell into this 
train ; as naturally, and as consciously to each other, as if we had unre- 
servedly said so. But we preserved an unbroken silence, I believed that 
she had read, or partly read, my thoughts that night ; and that she fully 
comprehended why I gave mine no more distinct expression. 

This Christmas-time being come, and Agnes having reposed no new 
confidence in me, a doubt that had several times arisen in my mind — 
whether she could have that perception of the true state of my breast, 
which restrained her with the. apprehension of giving me pain — began to 
oppress me heavily. If that were so, my sacrifice was nothing ; my plainest 
obligation to her unfulfilled ; and every poor action I had shrunk from, I 
was hourly doing. I resolved to set this right beyond all doubt ; — if such a 
barrier were between us, to break it down at once with a determined hand. 

It was — what lasting reason have I to remember it ! — a cold, harsh, 
winter day. There had been snow, some hours before ; and it lay, not 
deep, but hard-frozen on the ground. Out at sea, beyond my window, 
the wind blew ruggedly from the north. I had been thinking of it, sweep- 
ing over those mountain wastes of snow in Switzerland, then inaccessible 
to any human foot ; and had been speculating which was the lonelier, those 
solitary regions, or a deserted ocean. 

" Kidilig to-day, Trot ? " said my aunt, putting her head in at the door. 

" Yes," said I, " I am going over to Canterbury. It 's a good day for 
a ride." 

" I hope your horse may think so too," said my aunt ; "but at present 
he is holding down his head and his ears, standing before the door there, 
as if he thought his stable preferable." 

My aunt, I may observe, allowed my horse on the forbidden ground, 
but had not at all relented toward the donkeys. 

" He will be fresh enough, presently ! " said I. 

" The ride will do his master good, at all events," observed my aunt, 
glancing at the papers on my table. " Ah, child, you pass a good many 
hours here ! I never thought, when I used to read books, what work it 
was to write them." 

" It 's work enough to read them, sometimes," I returned. " As to the 
writing, it has its own charms, aunt." 

"Ah! I see! " said my aunt. "Ambition, love of approbation, sym- 
pathy, and much more, I suppose ? Well : go along with you ! " 

" i)o you know anything more," said I, standing composedly before her 
— she had patted me on the shoulder, and sat down in my chair, " of that 
attachment of Agnes ? " 

She looked up in my face a little while, before replying : 

" I think I do, Trot." 

" Are you confirmed in your impression ? " I inquired. 

" I think I am, Trot." 

She looked so steadfastly at me : with a kind of doubt, or pity, or 
suspense in her affection : that I summoned the stronger determination to 
show her a perfectly cheerful face. 

" And what is more, Trot — " said my aunt. 

"Yes!" 



OF DAVID COPPEREIELD. 611 

" I think Agnes is going to be married." 

" God bless her ! " said I, cheerfally. 

" God bless her ! " said my aunt, " and her husband too ! " 

I echoed it, parted from my aunt, went lightly down stairs, mounted, 
and rode away. There was greater reason than before to do what I had 
resolved to do. 

How well I recollect the wintry ride ! The frozen particles of ice, 
brushed from the blades of grass by the wind, and borne across my face ; 
the hard clatter of the horse's hoofs, beating a tune upon the ground ; 
the stiff-tilled soil ; the snow-drift, lightly eddying in the chalk-pit as the 
breeze ruffled it ; the smoking team with the waggon of old hay, stopping 
to breathe on the hill-top, and shaking their bells musically ; the whitened 
slopes and sweeps of Down-land lying against the dark sky, as if they 
were drawn on a huge slate ! 

I found Agnes alone. The little girls had gone to their own homes 
now, and she was alone by the fire, reading. She put down her book on 
seeing me come in ; and having welcomed me as usual, took her work- 
basket and sat in one of the old-fashioned windows. 

I sat beside her on the window-seat, and we talked of what I was doing, 
and when it would be done, and of the progress I had made since my last 
visit. Agnes was very cheerful ; and laughingly predicted that I should 
soon become too famous to be talked to, on such subjects. 

" So I make the most of the present time, you see," said Agnes, " and 
talk to you while I may." 

As I looked at her beautiful face, observant of her work, she raised her 
mild clear eyes, and saw that I was looking at her. 

" You are thoughtful to-day, Trotwood ! " 

" Agnes, shall I tell you what about ? I came to tell you." 

She put aside her work, as she was used to do when we were seriously 
discussing anything ; and gave me her whole attention. 

" My dear Agnes, do you doubt my being true to you ? " 

" No ! " she answered, with a look of astonishment. 

" Do you doubt my being what I always have been to you ? " 

" No ! " she answered, as before. 

" Do you remember that I tried to tell you, when I came home, what a 
debt of gratitude I owed you, dearest Agnes, and how fervently I felt 
towards you ? " 

" I remember it," she said, gently, " very well." 

" You have a secret," said I. " Let me share it, Agnes." 

She cast down her eyes, and trembled. 

" I could hardly fail to know, even if I had not heard — but from other 
lips than yours, Agnes, which seems strange — that there is some one upon 
whom you have bestowed the treasure of your love. Do not shut me out 
of what concerns your happiness so nearly ! If you can trust me, as you 
say you can, and as I know you may, let me be your friend, your brother, 
in this matter, of all others ! " 

With an appealing, almost a reproachful, glance, she rose from the 
window ; and hurrying across the room as if without knowing where, put her 
hands before her face, and burst into such tears as smote me to the heart. 

And yet they awakened something in me, bringing promise to my heart.- 

re2 



612 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

Without my knowing why, these tears allied themselves with the quietly 
sad smile which was so fixed in my remembrance, and shook me more with 
hope than fear or sorrow. 

" Agnes ! Sister ! Dearest ! What have I done ! " 

" Let me go away, Trotwood. I am not well. I am not myself. I 
will speak to you by and by — another time. I will write to you. Don't 
speak to me now. Don't ! don't ! " 

I sought to recollect what she had said, when I had spoken to her on that 
former night, of her affection needing no return. It seemed a very world 
that I must search through in a moment. 

" Agnes, I cannot bear to see you so, and think that I have been the 
cause. My dearest girl, dearer to me than anything in life, if you are 
unhappy, let me share your unhappiness. If you are in need of help or 
counsel, let me try to give it to you. If you have indeed a burden on 
your heart, let me try to lighten it. For whom do I live now, Agnes, if 
it is not for you ! " 

" Oh, spare me ! I am not myself! Another time ! " was all I could 
distinguish. 

Was it a selfish error that was leading me away ? Or, having once a 
clue to hope, was there something opening to me that I had not dared to 
think of? 

" I must say more. I cannot let you leave me so ! For Heaven's sake, 
Agnes, let us not mistake each other after all these years, and all that has 
come and gone with them ! I must speak plainly. If you have any lingering 
thought that I could envy the happiness you will confer ; that I could not 
resign you to a dearer protector, of your own choosing; that I could not, 
from my removed place, be a contented witness of your joy ; dismiss it, 
for I don't deserve it ! I have not suffered quite in vain. You have not 
taught me quite in vain. There is no alloy of self in what I feel for you." 

She was quiet now. In a little time, she turned her pale face towards 
me, and said in a low voice, broken here and there, but very clear, 

" I owe it to your pure friendship for me, Trotwood — which, indeed, 
I do not doubt — to tell you, you are mistaken. I can do no more. If 
I have sometimes, in the course of years, wanted help and counsel, they 
have come to me. If I have sometimes been unhappy, the feeling has 
passed away. If I have ever had a burden on my heart, it has been 
lightened for me. If I have any secret, it is — no new one ; and is — not 
what you suppose. I cannot reveal it, or divide it. It has long been 
mine, and must remain mine." 

" Agnes ! Stay ! A moment ! " 

She was going away, but I detained her. I clasped my arm about her 
waist. "In the course of years!" "It is not a new one!" JNTew 
thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colors of 
my life were changing. 

" Dearest Agnes ! Whom I so respect and honor — whom I so devotedly 
love ! When I came here to-day, I thought that nothing could have 
wrested this confession from me. I thought I could have kept it in my 
bosom all our lives, till we were old. But, Agnes, if I have indeed any 
new-born hope that I may ever call you something more than Sister, 
widely different from Sister ! " 



OY DAVID COPPERFIELD. 613 

Her tears fell fast ; but they were not like those she had lately shed, 
and I saw my hope brighten in them. 

" Agnes ! Ever my guide, and best support ! If you had been more 
mindful of yourself, and less of me, when we grew up here together, I 
think my heedless fancy never would have wandered from you. But you 
were so much better than I, so necessary to me in every boyish hope and 
disappointment, that to have you to confide in, and rely upon in every- 
thing, became a second nature, supplanting for the time the first and 
greater one of loving you as I do ! " 

Still weeping, but not sadly — joyfully ! And clasped in my arms as she 
had never been, as I had thought she never was to be ! 

" When I loved Dora — fondly, Agnes, as you know " 

" Yes ! " she cried, earnestly. " I am glad to know it I " 

" When I loved her — even then, my love would have been incomplete, 
without your sympathy. I had it, and it was perfected. And when I 
lost her, Agnes, what should I have been without you, still ! " 

Closer in my arms, nearer to ray heart, her trembling hand upon my 
shoulder, her sweet eyes shining through her tears, on mine ! 

" I went away, dear Agnes, loving you. I stayed away, loving you. 
I returned home, loving you ! " 

And now, I tried to tell her of the struggle I had had, and the 
conclusion I had come to. I tried to lay my mind before her, truly, 
and entirely. I tried to show her, how I had hoped I had come into the 
better knowledge of myself and of her ; how I had resigned myself to what 
that better knowledge brought ; and how I had come there, even that day, 
in my fidelity to this. If she did so love me (I said) that she could take 
me for her husband, she could do so, on no deserving of mine, except upon 
the truth of my love for her, and the trouble in which it had ripened 
to be what it was ; and hence it was that I revealed it. And 0, Agnes, 
even out of thy true eyes, in that same time, the spirit of my child-wife 
looked upon me, saying it was well ; and winning me, through thee, to 
tenderest recollections of the Blossom that had withered in its bloom ! 

" I am so blest, Trotwood — my heart is so overcharged — but there is 
one thing I must say." 

" Dearest, what ? " 

She laid her gentle hands upon my shoulders, and looked calmly in 
my face. 

" Do you know, yet, what it is ? " 

" I am afraid to speculate on what it is. Tell me, my dear." 

" I have loved you all my life ! " 

0, we were happy, we were happy ! Our tears were not for the trials 
(hers so much the greater), through which we had come to be thus, but 
for the rapture of being thus, never to be divided more ! 

We walked, that winter evening, in the fields together ; and the blessed 
calm within us seemed to be partaken by the frosty air. The early stars 
began to shine while we were lingering on, and looking up to them we 
thanked our God for having guided us to this tranquillity. 

We stood together in the same old-fashioned window at night, when 



614 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

the moon was shining j Agnes with her quiet eyes raised up to it ; I 
following her glance. Long miles of road then opened out before my 
mind ; and, toiling on, I saw a ragged way-worn boy, forsaken and neglected, 
who should come to call even the heart now beating against mine, his own. 

It was nearly dinner-time next day when we appeared before my aunt. 
She was up in my study, Peggotty said : which it was her pride to keep 
in readiness and order for me. We found her, in her spectacles, sitting by 
the fire. 

" Goodness me ! " said my aunt, peering through the dusk, " who 's 
this you 're bringing home ? " 

" Agnes," said I. 

As we had arranged to say nothing at first, my aunt was not a little dis- 
comfited. She darted a hopeful glance at me, when I said " Agnes ;" but 
seeing that I looked as usual, she took off her spectacles in despair, and 
rubbed her nose with them. 

She greeted Agnes heartily, nevertheless; and we were soon in the 
lighted parlor down stairs, at dinner. My aunt put on her spectacles 
twice or thrice, to take another look at me, but as often took them off 
again, disappointed, and rubbed her nose with them. Much to the dis- 
comfiture of Mr. Dick, who knew this to be a bad symptom. 

"By the by, aunt," said I, after dinner; "I have been speaking to 
Agnes about what you told me." 

• Then, Trot," said my aunt, turning scarlet, " you did wrong, and 
broke your promise." 

" You are not angry, aunt, I trust ? I am sure you won't be, when 
you learn that Agnes is not unhappy in any attachment." 

" Stuff and nonsense ! " said my aunt. 

As my aunt appeared to be annoyed, I thought the best way was to cut 
her annoyance short. I took Agnes in my arm to the back of her chair, 
and we both leaned over her. My aunt, with one clap of her hands, and 
one look through her spectacles, immediately went into hysterics, for the 
first and only time in all my knowledge of her. 

The hysterics called up Peggotty. The moment my aunt was restored, 
she flew at Peggotty, and calling her a silly old creature, hugged her with 
all her might. After that, she hugged Mr. Dick (who was highly honored, 
but a good deal surprised) ; and after that, told them why. Then, we were 
all happy together. 

I could not discover whether my aunt, in her last short conversation 
with me, had fallen on a pious fraud, or had really mistaken the state of 
my mind. It was quite enough, she said, that she had told me Agnes 
was going to be married ; and that I now knew better than any one how 
true it was. 

We were married within a fortnight. Traddles and Sophy, and Doctor 
and Mrs. Strong, were the only guests at our quiet wedding. We left 
them full of joy ; and drove away together. Clasped in my embrace, 
I held the source of every worthy aspiration I had ever had ; the centre 
of myself, the circle of my life, my own, my wife ; my love of whom was 
founded on a rock ! 




^ 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 615 

"Dearest husband !'" said Agnes. " Now that I may call you by that 
name, I have one thing more to tell you." 

"Let me hear it, love." 

" It grows out of the night when Dora died. She sent you for me." 

" She did." 

" She told me that she left me something. Can you think what it was ? " 

I believed I could. I drew the wife who had so long loved me, closer 
to my side. 

" She told me that she made a last request to me, and left me a last 
charge." 

"And it was. " 

" That only I would occupy this vacant place." 

And Agnes laid her head upon my breast, and wept ; and I wept with 
her, though we were so happy. 



CHAPTER LXIIL 

A VISITOE. 



What I have purposed to record is nearly finished ; but there is yet 
an incident conspicuous in my memory, on which, it often rests with 
delight, and without which one thread in the web I have spun, would 
have a ravelled end. 

I had advanced in fame and fortune, my domestic joy was perfect, I 
had been married ten happy years. Agnes and I were sitting by the fire, 
in our house in London, one night in spring, and three of our children 
were playing in the room, when I was told that a stranger wished to 
see me. 

He had been asked if he came on business, and had answered No ; he 
had come for the pleasure of seeing me, and had come a long way. He 
was an old man, my servant said, and looked like a farmer. 

As this sounded mysterious to the children, and moreover was like the 
beginning of a favorite story Agnes used to tell them, introductory to 
the arrival of a wicked old Fairy in a cloak who hated every body, it 
produced some commotion. One of our boys laid his head in his mother's 
lap to be out of harm's way, and little Agnes (our eldest child) left her 
doll in a chair to represent her, and thrust out her little heap of golden 
curls from between the window-curtains, to see what happened next. 

" Let him come in here ! " said I. 

There soon appeared, pausing in the dark doorway as he entered, a 
hale, grey-haired old man. Little Agnes, attracted by his looks, had run 
to bring him in, and I had not yet clearly seen his face, when my wife, 
starting up, cried out to me, in a pleased and agitated voice, that it was 
Mr. Peggotty ! 



616 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

It was Mr. Peggotty. An old man now, but in a ruddy, hearty, strong 
old age. When our first emotion was over, and he sat before the fire 
with the children on his knees, and the blaze shining on his face, he 
looked, to me, as vigorous and robust, withal as handsome, an old man, 
as ever I had seen. 

" Mas'r Davy," said he. And the old name in the old tone fell so 
naturally on my ear ! " Mas'r Davy, 'tis a joyful hour as I see you, once 
more, 'long with your own trew wife ! " 

" A joyful hour indeed, old friend ! " cried I. 

" And these heer pretty ones," said Mr. Peggotty. " To look at these 
heer flowers ! Why, Mas'r Davy, you was but the heighth of the littlest of 
these, when I first see you ! WhenEm'ly warn't no bigger, and our poor 
lad were but a lad ! " 

" Time has changed me more than it has changed you since then," said 
I. " But, let these dear rogues go to bed ; and as no house in England but 
this must hold you, tell me where to send for your luggage (is the old 
black bag among it, that went so far, I wonder !), and then, over a glass of 
Yarmouth grog, we will have the tidings of ten years ! " 

" Are you alone ? " asked Agnes. 

" Yes, ma'am," he said, kissing her hand, " quite alone." 

We sat him between us, not knowing how to give him welcome 
enough ; and as I began to listen to his old familiar voice, I could have 
fancied he was still pursuing his long journey in search of his darling 
niece. 

" It 's a mort of water," said Mr. Peggotty, " fur to come across, and 
on'y stay a matter of fower weeks. But water ('specially when 'tis salt) 
comes nat'ral to me; and friends is dear, and I am heer. — Which is 
verse," said Mr. Peggotty, surprised to find it out, " though I hadn't such 
intentions." 

" Are you going back those many thousand miles, so soon ? " asked 
Agnes. 

" Yes, ma'am," he returned. " I giv the promise to Em'ly, afore I 
come away. You see, I doen't grow younger as the years comes round, 
and if I hadn't sailed as 'twas, most like I shouldn't never have done 't. 
And it 's alius been on my mind, as I must come and see Mas'r Davy and 
your own sweet blooming self, in your wedded happiness, afore I got to> 
be too old." 

He looked at us, as if he could never feast his eyes on us sufficiently. 
Agnes laughingly put back some scattered locks of his grey hair, that he 
might see us better. 

" And now tell us," said I, " everything relating to your fortunes." 

" Our fortuns, Mas'r Davy," he rejoined, " is soon told. We haven't 
fared nohows, but fared to thrive. We 've alius thrived. We 've worked 
as we ought to 't, and maybe we lived a leetle hard at first or so, but we 
have alius thrived. What with sheep -farming, and what with stock- 
farming, and what with one thing and what with t'other, we are as well to 
do, as well could be. Theer 's been kiender a blessing fell upon us," said 
Mr. Peggotty, reverentially inclining his head, "and we've done nowt 
but prosper. That is, in the long run. If not yesterday, why then to-day. 
If not to-day, why then to-monow." 



OF DAVID COPPE11FIELD. 617 

" And Emily ? " said Agnes and T, both together. 

" Em'ly," said " he, arter you left her, ma'am — and T never heerd her 
saying of her prayers at night, t'other side the canvas screen, when we 
was settled in the Bush, but what I heerd your name — and arter she and 
me lost sight of Mas'r Davy, that theer shining sundown — was that low, at 
first, that, if she had know'd then what Mas'r Davy kep from us so kind 
and thowtful, 'tis my opinion she 'd have drooped away. But theer 
was some poor folks aboard as had illness among 'em, and she took 
care of them; and theer was the children in our company, and she 
took care of them ; and so she got to be busy, and to be doing good, and 
that helped her." 

" When did she first hear of it ? " I asked. 

" I kep it from her arter I heerd on't," said Mr. Peggotty, " going* 
on nigh a year. We was living then in a solitary place, but among 
the beautifullest trees, and with the roses a covering our Beein to the- 
roof. Theer come along one day, when I was out a working on the 
land, a traveller from our own Norfolk or Suffolk in England (I doen't 
rightly mind which), and of course we took him in, and giv him to eat 
and drink, and made him welcome. We all do that, all the colony over. 
He 'd got an old newspaper with him, and some other account in print of 
the storm. That 's how she know'd it. When I come home at night, I 
found she know'd it." 

He dropped his voice as he said these words, and the gravity I so well 
remembered overspread his face. 

" Did it change her much? " we asked. 

" Aye, for a good long time," he said, shaking his head ; " if not to this 
present hour. But I think the solitoode done her good. And she had a 
deal to mind in the way of poultry and the like, and minded of it, and 
come through. I wonder," he said thoughtfully, "if you could see my 
Em'ly now, Mas'r Davy, whether you'd know her ! " 

" Is she so altered ? " I inquired. 

"I doen't know. I see her ev'ry day, and doen't know; but, odd- 
times, I have thowt so. A slight figure," said Mr. Peggotty, looking at 
the fire, " kiender worn ; soft, sorrowful, blue eyes ; a delicate face ; a 
pritty head, leaning a little down; a quiet voice and way — timid a'most. 
That's Em'ly!" 

We silently observed him as he sat, still looking at the fire. 

" Some thinks," he said, " as her affection was ill-bestowed ; some, as 
her marriage was broke off by death. No one knows how 'tis. She 
might have married well, a mort of times, ' but, uncle,' she says to me, 
* that 's gone for ever.' Cheerful along with me ; retired when others is 
by ; fond of going any distance fur to teach a child, or fur to tend a sick 
person, or fur to do some kindness tow'rds a young girl's wedding (and 
she 's done a many, but has never seen one) ; fondly loving of her uncle ; 
patient ; liked by young and old ; sowt out by all that has any trouble. 
That 's Em'ly ! " 

He drew his hand across his face, and with a half-suppressed sigh looked 
up from the fire. 

"Is Martha with you yet? " I asked. 

" Martha," he replied " got married, Mas'r Davy, in the second year. 



618 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

A young man, a farm-laborer, as come by us on Ms way to market with 
his mas'r's drays — a journey of over five hundred mile, theer and back — 
made offers fur to take her fur his wife (wives is very scarce theer), and 
then to set up fur their two selves in the Bush. She spoke to me fur to 
tell him her trew story. I did. They was married, and they live fower 
hundred mile away from any voices but their own and the singing birds.'* 

" Mrs. Guinmidge ? " I suggested. 

It was a pleasant key to touch, for Mr. Peggotty suddenly burst into a 
roar of laughter, and rubbed his hands up and down his legs, as he had 
been accustomed to do when he enjoyed himself in the long-shipwrecked 
boat. 

" Would you believe it ! " he said. " Why, someun even made offers 
fur to marry Iter ! If a ship's cook that was turning settler, Mas'r Davy, 
didn't make offers fur to marry Missis Gummidge, I. 'm Gormed — and I 
can't say no fairer than that ! " 

I never saw Agnes laugh so. This sudden ecstacy on the part of Mr. 
Peggotty was so delightful to her, that she could not leave off laughing ; 
and the more she laughed the more she made me laugh, and the greater 
Mr. Peggotty's ecstacy became, and the more he rubbed his legs. 

" And what did Mrs. Gummidge say ? " I asked, when I was grave 
enough. 

" If you '11 believe me," returned Mr. Peggotty, " Missis Gummidge, 
'stead of saying ' thank you, I 'm much obleeged to you, I ain't a going fur 
to change my condition at my time of life,' up'd with a bucket as was 
standing by, and laid it over that theer ship's cook's head 'till he sung 
out for help, and I went in and resided of him." 

Mr. Peggotty burst into a great roar of laughter, and Agnes and I both 
kept him company. 

" But I must say this, for the good creetur," he resumed, wiping his 
face when we were quite exhausted ; " she has been all she said she 'd 
be to us, and more. She 's the willingest, the trewest, the honestest- 
helping woman, Mas'r Davy, as ever draw'd the breath of life. I have 
never know'd her to be lone and lorn, for a single minute, not even when 
the colony was all afore us, and we was new to it. And thinking of the 
old'un is a thing she never done, I do assure you, since she left 
England ! " 

" Now, last, not least, Mr. Micawber," said I. " He has paid off every 
obligation he incurred here — even to Traddles's bill, you remember, my 
dear Agnes — and therefore we may take it for granted that he is doing 
well. But what is the latest news of him ? " 

Mr. Peggotty, with a smile, put his hand in his breast-pocket, and 
produced a flat-folded, paper parcel, from which he took out, with much 
care, a little odd-looking newspaper. 

"You are to unnerstan', Mas'r Davy," said he, " as we have left the 
Bush now, being so well to do ; and have gone right away round to Port 
Middlebay Harbor, wheer theer 's what we call a town." 

"Mr. Micawber was in the Bush near you? " said I. 

"Bless you, yes," said Mr. Peggotty, "and turned to with a will. I 
never wish to meet a better gen'lman for turning to, with a will. F ve 
seen that theer bald head of his, a perspiring in the sun, Mas'r Davy, 



08 DAVID COPPEEFIELD. 619 

'till I a'most thowt it would have melted away. And now lie 's a 
Magistrate." 

* A Magistrate, eh ? " said I. 

Mr. Peggotty pointed to a certain paragraph in the newspaper, where I 
read aloud as follows, from the " Port Middlebay Times :" 

" jSSf* The public dinner to our distinguished fellow- colonist and towns- 
man, Wilkins Micawber, Esquire, Port Middlebay District Magistrate, 
came off yesterday in the large room of the Hotel, which was crowded to 
suffocation. It is estimated that not fewer than forty-seven persons must 
have been accommodated with dinner at one time, exclusive of the com- 
pany in the passage and on the stairs. The beauty, fashion, and exclu- 
siveness of Port Middlebay, flocked to do honor to one so deservedly 
esteemed, so highly talented, and so widely popular. Doctor Mell (of 
Colonial Salem-House Grammar School, Port Middlebay) presided, and 
on his right sat the distinguished guest. After the removal of the cloth, 
and the singing of Non Nobis (beautifully executed, and in which we were 
at no loss to distinguish the bell-like notes of that gifted amateur, 
Wilkins Micawber, Es quire, Junior), the usual loyal and patriotic 
toasts were severally given and rapturously received. Doctor Mell, in a 
speech replete with feeling, then proposed ' Our distinguished Guest, the 
ornament of our town. May he never leave us but to better himself, and 
may his success among us be such as to render his bettering himself 
impossible ! ' The cheering with which the toast was received defies 
description. Again and again it rose and fell, like the waves of 
ocean. At length all was hushed, and Wilkins Micawber, Esquire, 
presented himself to return thanks. Ear be it from us, in the present 
comparatively imperfect state of the resources of our establishment, to 
endeavour to follow our distinguished townsman through the smoothly- 
flowing periods of his polished and highly-ornate address ! Suffice it to 
observe, that it was a masterpiece of eloquence ; and that those passages 
in which he more particularly traced his own successful career to its 
source, and warned the younger portion of his auditory from the shoals of 
ever incurring pecuniary liabilities which they were unable to liquidate, 
brought a tear into the manliest eye present. The remaining toasts were 
Doctor Mell ; Mrs. Micawber (who gracefully bowed her acknow- 
ledgments from the side-door, where a galaxy of beauty was elevated on 
chairs, at once to witness and adorn the gratifying scene) ; Mrs. Eidger 
Begs (late Miss Micawber) ; Mrs. Mell; Wilkins Micawber, 
Esquire, Junior (who convulsed the assembly by humorously remarking 
that he found himself unable to return thanks in a speech, but would do 
so, with their permission, in a song) ; Mrs. Micawber' s Eamily (well- 
known, it is needless to remark, in the mother-country), &c. &c. &c. At 
the conclusion of the proceedings the tables were cleared as if by art- 
magic for dancing. Among the votaries of Terpsichore, who disported 
themselves until Sol gave warning for departure, Wilkins Micaw r ber, 
Esquire, Junior, and the lovely and accomplished Miss Helena, fourth 
daughter of Doctor Mell, were particularly remarkable." 

I was looking back to the name of Doctor Mell, pleased to have 



620 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

discovered, in these happier circumstances, Mr. Mell, formerly poor 
pinched usher to my Middlesex magistrate, when Mr. Peggotty pointing 
to another part of the paper, my eyes rested on my own name, and I read 
thus: 

" TO DAVID COPPEKEIELD, ESQUIKE, 

" THE EMINENT AUTHOR. 

" My Dear Sir, 

"Years have elapsed, since I had an opportunity of ocularly 
perusing the lineaments, now familiar to the imaginations of a consider- 
able portion of the civilised world. 

" But, my dear sir, though estranged (by the force of circumstances 
over which I have had no controul) from the personal society of the 
friend and companion of my youth, I have not been unmindful of his 
soaring flight. Nor have I been debarred, 

Though seas between us braid ha' roared, 

(Burns) from participating in the intellectual feasts he has spread 
before us. 

"I cannot, therefore, allow of the departure from this place of an 
individual whom we mutually respect and esteem, without, my dear sir, 
taking this public opportunity of thanking you, on my own behalf, and, 
I may undertake to add, on that of the whole of the Inhabitants of 
Port Middlebay, for the gratification of which you are the ministering 
agent. 

" Go on, my dear sir ! You are not unknown here, you are not 
unappreciated. Though 'remote,' we are neither 'unfriended/ 'melan- 
choly,' nor (I may add) 'slow.' Go on, my dear sir, in your Eagle 
course ! The Inhabitants of Port Middlebay may at least aspire to watch 
it, with delight, with entertainment, with instruction ! 

"Among the eyes elevated towards you from this portion of the globe, 
will ever be found, while it has light and life, 
"The 

"Eye 

" Appertaining to 

" WlLKINS MlCAWBER, 

" Magistrate." 

I found, on glancing at the remaining contents of the newspaper, that 
Mr. Micawber was a diligent and esteemed correspondent of that Journal. 
There was another letter from him in the same paper, touching a bridge ; 
there was an advertisement of a collection of similar letters by him, to be 
shortly republished, in a neat volume, " with considerable additions ; " 
and, unless I am very much mistaken, the Leading Article was his also. 

We talked much of Mr. Micawber, on many other evenings while Mr. 
Peggotty remained with us. He lived with us during the whole term of 
his stay, — which, I think, was something less than a month, — and his 
sister and niy aunt came to London to see him. Agnes and I parted 
from him aboardship, when he sailed ; and we shall never part from him 
more, on earth. 



OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 621 

But before he left, he went with me to Yarmouth, to see a little tablet 
I had put up in the churchyard to the memory of Ham. While I was 
copying the plain inscription for him at his request, I saw him stoop, and 
gather a tuft of grass from the grave, and a little earth. 

" For Em'ly," he said, as he put it in his breast. " I promised, 
Mas'r Davy." 



CHAPTER LXIY. 

A LAST RETROSPECT. 



And now my written story ends. I look back, once more — for the last 
time — before I close these leaves. 

I see myself, with Agnes at my side, journeying along the road of life. 
I see our children and our friends around us ; and I hear the roar of many 
voices, not indifferent to me as I travel on. 

What faces are the most distinct to me in the fleeting crowd ? Lo, 
these ; all turning to me as I ask my thoughts the question ! 

Here is my aunt, in stronger spectacles, an old woman of fourscore 
years and more, but upright yet, and a steady walker of six miles at a 
stretch in winter weather. 

Always with her, here comes Peggotty, my good old nurse, likewise in 
spectacles, accustomed to do needlework at night very close to the lamp, 
but never sitting down to it without a bit of wax candle, a yard measure 
in a little house, and a work-box with a picture of St. Paul's upon 
the lid. 

The cheeks and arms of Peggotty, so hard and red in my childish days, 
when I wondered why the birds didn't peck her in preference to apples, 
are shrivelled now ; and her eyes, that used to darken their whole neigh- 
bourhood in her face, are fainter (though they glitter still) ; but her rough 
forefinger, which I once associated with a pocket nutmeg grater, is just 
the same, and when I see my least child catching at it as it totters from 
my aunt to her, I think of our little parlor at home, when I could scarcely 
walk. My aunt's old disappointment is set right, now. She is godmother 
to a real living Betsey Trotwood ; and Dora (the next in order) says she 
spoils her. 

There is something bulky in Peggotty 's pocket. It is nothing smaller 
than the Crocodile-Book, which is in rather a dilapidated condition by tins 
time, with divers of the leaves torn and stitched across, but which Peggotty 
exhibits to the children as a precious relic. I find it very curious to see 
my own infant face, looking up at me from the Crocodile stories ; and to 
be reminded by it of my old acquaintance Brooks of Sheffield. 

Among my boys, this summer holiday time, I see an old man making 
giant kites, and gazing at them in the air, with a delight for which there 
are no words. He greets me rapturously, and whispers, with many nods 



622 THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

and winks, " Trotwood, you will be glad to hear that I shall finish the 
Memorial when I have nothing else to do, and that your aunt 's the most 
extraordinary woman in the world, sir ! " 

Who is this bent lady, supporting herself by a stick, and showing me a 
countenance in which there are some traces of old pride and beauty, feebly 
contending with a querulous, imbecile, fretful wandering of the mind ? She 
is in a garden ; and near her stands a sharp, dark, withered woman, with 
a white scar on her lip. Let me hear what they say. 

" Rosa, I have forgotten this gentleman's name." 

Eosa bends over her, and calls to her, " Mr. Copperfield." 

"lam glad to see you, sir. I am sorry to observe you are in mourning. 
I hope Time will be good to you ! " 

Her impatient attendant scolds her, tells her I am not in mourning, 
bids her look again, tries to rouse her. 

" You have seen my son, sir,*' says the elder lady. " Are you 
reconciled ? " 

Looking fixedly at me, she puts her hand to her forehead, and moans. 
Suddenly, she cries, in a terrible voice, " Eosa, come to me. He is dead ! " 
Eosa, kneeling at her feet, by turns caresses her, and quarrels with her ; 
now fiercely telling her, " I loved him better than you ever did ! " — now 
soothing her to sleep on her breast, like a sick child. Thus I leave them ; 
thus I always find them ; thus they wear their time away, from year to 
year. 

What ship comes sailing home from India, and what English lady is 
this, married to a growling old Scotch Croesus with great flaps of ears. 
Can this be Julia Mills ? 

Indeed it is Julia Mills, peevish and fine, with a black man to carry 
cards and letters to her on a golden salver, and a copper- colored woman in 
linen, with a bright handkerchief round her head, to serve her Tiffin in her 
dressing-room. But Julia keeps no diary in these days ; never sings 
Affection's Dirge ; eternally quarrels with the old Scotch Croesus, who is 
a sort of yellow bear with a tanned hide. Julia is steeped in money to the 
throat, and talks and thinks of nothing else. I liked her better in the 
Desert of Sahara. 

Or perhaps this is the Desert of Sahara ! For, though Julia has a stately 
house, and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every day, I see no 
green growth near her ; nothing that can ever come to fruit or flower. 
What Julia calls " society," I see ; among it Mr. Jack Maldon, from his 
Patent Place, sneering at the hand that gave it him, and speaking to me, 
of the Doctor, as " so charmingly antique." But when society is the 
name for such hollow gentlemen and ladies, Julia, and when its breeding- 
is professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retard 
mankind, I think we must have lost ourselves in that same Desert of 
Sahara, and had better find the way out. 

And lo, the Doctor, always our good friend, laboring at his Dic- 
tionary (somewhere about the letter D), and happy in his home and wife. 
Also the Old Soldier, on a considerably reduced footing, and by no means 
so influential as in days of yore ! 

Working at his chambers in the Temple, with a busy aspect, and his 



OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 623 

hair (where he is not bald) made more rebellious than ever by the constant 
friction of his lawyer's-wig, I come, in a later time, upon my dear old 
Traddles. His table is covered with thick piles of papers ; and I say, as 
I look around me : 

" If Sophy were your clerk, now, Traddles, she would have enough to 
do ! " 

"You may say that, my dear Copperfield! But those were capital 
days, too, in Holborn Court 1 Were they not ? " 

" When she told you you would be a Judge ? But it was not the town 
talk then I" 

" At all events," says Traddles, " if I ever am one " 

" Why, you know you will be." 

" Well, my dear Copperfield, when I am one, I shall tell the story, as I 
said I would." 

We walk away, arm in arm. I am going to have a family dinner with 
Traddles. It is Sophy's birthday ; and, on our road, Traddles discourses 
to me of the good fortune he has enjoyed. 

" I really have been able, my dear Copperfield, to do all that I had 
most at heart. There 's the Keverend Horace promoted to that living at 
four hundred and fifty pounds a year ; there are our two boys receiving 
the very best education, and distinguishing themselves as steady scholars 
and good fellows ; there are three of the girls married very comfortably ; 
there are three more living with us ; there are three more keeping house 
for the Keverend Horace since Mrs. Crewler's decease ; and all of them 
happy." 

" Except — " I suggest. 

"Except the Beauty," says Traddles. "Yes. It was very unfortu- 
nate that she should marry such a vagabond. But there was a certain 
dash and glare about him that caught her. However, now we have 
got her safe at our house, and got rid of him, we must cheer her up 
again." 

Traddles's house is one of the very houses — or it easily may have 
been — which he and Sophy used to parcel out, in their evening walks. 
It is a large house ; but Traddles keeps his papers in his dressing-room, 
and his boots with his papers ; and he and Sophy squeeze themselves into 
upper rooms, reserving the best bed-rooms for the Beauty and the girls. 
There is no room to spare in the house ; for more of " the girls" are here, and 
always are here, by some accident or other, than I know how to count. Here, 
when we go in, is a crowd of them, running down to the door, and handing 
Traddles about to be kissed, until he is out of breath. Here, established 
in perpetuity, is the poor Beauty, a widow with a little girl; here, 
at dinner on Sophy's birthday, are the three married girls with their 
three husbands, and one of the husband's brothers, and another hus- 
band's cousin, and another husband's sister, who appears to me to be 
engaged to the cousin. Traddles, exactly the same simple, unaffected 
fellow as he ever was, sits at the foot of the large table like a Patriarch ; 
and Sophy beams upon him, from the head, across a cheerful space that is 
certainly not glittering with Britannia metal. 

And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet, these 



a^== 



624 THE HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE OF DAVID COPPERPIELD. 

faces facie away. But, one face, shining on me like a Heavenly light by 
which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond, them all. And 
that remains. 

I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me. My 
lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night ; but the dear 
presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company. 

Agnes, my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life 
indeed ; so may I, when realities are melting from me like the shadows 
which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward ! 



THE END. 



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